Leibniz On Causation And Agency Julia Jorati

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Leibniz on Causation and Agency
This book presents a comprehensive examination of Gottfried Leibniz’sviews
on the nature of agents and their actions. Julia Jorati offers a fresh look at
controversial topics including Leibniz’s doctrines of teleology, the causation of
spontaneous changes within substances, divine concurrence, freedom, and
contingency, and also discusses widely neglected issues such as his theories
of moral responsibility, control, attributability, and compulsion. Rather than
focusing exclusively on human agency, she explores the activities of nonra-
tional substances and the differences between distinctive types of actions,
showing how the will, appetitions, and teleology are key to Leibniz’sdiscus-
sions of agency. Her book reveals that Leibniz has a nuanced and compelling
philosophy of action that has relevance for present-day discussions of agency.
It will be of interest to scholars and students of early modern philosophy as well
as to metaphysicians and philosophers of action.
julia joratiis Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the Ohio State
University. She has published numerous articles on Leibniz’s metaphysics,
philosophy of mind, and ethics, in publications including theJournal of the
History of Philosophy, The Leibniz Review, Philosophy Compass, and several
edited volumes.

Leibniz on Causation
and Agency
Julia Jorati
The Ohio State University

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Contents
List of Tables page vi
Acknowledgments vii
Note on Translations and Citations viii
List of Abbreviations ix
Introduction 1
1 Monads and Their Actions 8
2 Spontaneity 37
3 Teleology 59
4 Attributability and Divine Concurrence 92
5 Freedom 114
6 Control, Weakness, and Compulsion 148
7 Moral Agency 180
References 208
Index 217
v

Tables
1 Three Types of Spontaneity page58
2 Types of Spontaneity and Teleology 77
3 Types of Necessity 128
vi

Acknowledgments
Many people have made direct or indirect contributions to this project. First and
foremost, I am grateful to Michael Della Rocca, whose many comments over the
years have shaped and sharpened my thoughts about Leibniz. I also thank Bernd
Ludwig, whoﬁrst introduced me to early modern philosophy and to Leibniz
when I was an undergraduate. Marleen Rozemond, Paul Lodge, Donald
Rutherford, and Stephan Schmid provided extensive comments on the book
manuscript and prompted me to make many improvements, for which I am
tremendously thankful. Moreover, I am grateful to all the others who have given
me feedback at various stages: Chloe Armstrong, Christian Barth, Sebastian
Bender, Gregory Brown, Julia Borcherding, John Carriero, Lisa Downing, Tom
Feeney, Juan Garcia, Ursula Goldenbaum, Sean Greenberg, John Hare, Verity
Harte, Glenn Hartz, Larry Jorgensen, Sukjae Lee, Antonia LoLordo, Jeffrey
McDonough, Brian McLean, Sam Newlands, Robert Pasnau, Sydney Penner,
Dominik Perler, Kristin Primus, Kelley Schiffman, Tad Schmaltz, Lisa Shabel,
Stewart Shapiro, Sun-Joo Shin, Allan Silverman, Alison Simmons, Robert
Sleigh, Neil Tennant, John Whipple, and Kenneth Winkler. Of course, I am
solely to blame for any mistakes and imperfections in this book–much like
Leibnizian agents are responsible for all privations in their actions, as we will see
inChapter 4. Finally, I thank my partner Hadi Jorati, who encouraged me every
step of the way.
There is some overlap between this book and material already published
elsewhere:Chapters 2and3contain some of the material from Jorati (2015)
and (2013);Chapter 4contains some material from von Bodelschwingh (Jorati)
(2011). I thank the publishers for their permission to use this material.
vii

Note on Translations and Citations
If an English edition is explicitly cited (or associated with an abbreviation),
translations are taken from that English edition unless otherwise speciﬁed.
In all other cases, translations are mine. Quotations will include all italics
from the original text, unless otherwise speciﬁed.
viii

Abbreviations
(a) Texts by Leibniz and Editions of Leibniz Texts
A Sämtliche Schriften und Briefe. Ed. Deutsche Akademie der
Wissenschaften. Darmstadt, Leipzig, Berlin: Akademie Verlag,
1923–2015. Cited by series, volume, page.
AG Philosophical Essays. Ed. and transl. Roger Ariew and Daniel
Garber. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1989.
Beeley “Leibniz on Wachter’sElucidarius cabalisticus”(1706). Ed.
Philip Beeley.The Leibniz Review12 (2002), 1–11.
C Opuscules et fragments inédits de Leibniz. Ed. Louis Couturat.
Paris: F. Alcan, 1903.
CD Causa Dei, appended to theTheodicy(1710). Cited by section
number as in G 6:439–62.
COE “Observations on the Book Concerning the Origin of Evil,”
appended to theTheodicy(1710). Cited by section number as in
G 6:400–36.
CP Confessio Philosophi: Papers concerning the Problem of Evil,
1671–1678. Ed. and transl. Robert Sleigh. New Haven: Yale
University Press, 2005.
DM “Discourse on Metaphysics”(1686). Cited by section as in
A 6.4.1529–88; translation from AG 35–68.
DPG Dissertation on Predestination and Grace. Ed. and transl.
Michael J. Murray. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011.
Dut Opera Omnia. 6 vols. Ed. Louis Dutens. Geneva: Fratres de
Tournes, 1768. Cited by volume, part, and page.
E Opera Philosophica. 2 vols. Ed. Johann E. Erdmann. Berlin:
Eichler, 1839–40. Cited by volume and page.
ET “Excursus on Theodicy §392”(1711), G 6:347–50.
FR “Preliminary Dissertation on...Faith and Reason,”published
with theTheodicy(1710). Cited by section number as in G 6:
49–101.
ix

G Die philosophischen Schriften von Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz.7
vols. Ed. Carl Immanuel Gerhardt. Berlin: Weidmann,
1875–90. Reprinted Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1978. Cited by
volume and page.
GLW Briefwechsel zwischen Leibniz und Christian Wolff. Ed. Carl
Immanuel Gerhardt. Halle: Schmidt, 1860.
GM Leibnizens Mathematische Schriften. 7 vols. Ed. Carl
Immanuel Gerhardt. Berlin: Asher, 1849–63. Reprinted
Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1971. Cited by volume and page.
Gr Textes inédits d’après des manuscripts de la Bilbliothèque
provinciale d’Hanovre. 2 vols. Ed. Gaston Grua. Paris:
Presses Universitaires de France, 1948.
H Theodicy. Transl. E.M. Huggard. La Salle: Open Court, 1985.
L Philosophical Papers and Letters. Ed. and transl. Leroy
Loemker. Dordrecht: Reidel, 1969.
LC The Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence (1715 –16). G 7:352–440;
cited by number of letter and number of paragraph [e.g., LC
5.2: letter 5, paragraph 2]; translation fromCorrespondence.
Ed. and transl. Roger Ariew. Indianapolis: Hackett, 2000.
LDB The Leibniz-Des Bosses Correspondence. Ed. and transl.
Brandon Look and Donald Rutherford. New Haven: Yale
University Press, 2007.
LDV The Leibniz-De Volder Correspondence. Ed. and transl. Paul
Lodge. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013.
LGR Leibniz on God and Religion: A Reader. Ed. and transl. Lloyd
Strickland. London: Bloomsbury, 2016.
LSC The Leibniz-Stahl Controversy. Ed. and transl. François
Duchesneau and Justin E.H. Smith. New Haven: Yale
University Press, 2016.
M “Monadology”(1714). Cited by section as in G 6:607–23;
translation from AG 213–25.
Mason The Leibniz-Arnauld Correspondence(1686–1690). Ed. and
transl. Haydn T. Mason. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1967.
Mollat Mittheilungen aus Leibnizens ungedruckten Schriften. Ed.
Georg Mollat. Leipzig: Haessel, 1893.
MP Philosophical Writings. Ed. and transl. Mary Morris and
George H.R. Parkinson. London: J. M. Dent, 1973.
NE New Essays on Human Understanding(1704). Cited by page
numbers from A.6.6; translation fromNew Essays on Human
Understanding, transl. Peter Remnant and Jonathan Bennett.
New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
x List of Abbreviations

ONI “On Nature Itself”(1698). Cited by section as in G 4:504–16;
translation from AG 155–67.
PNG “Principles of Nature and Grace, Based on Reason”(1714). Cited
by section as in G 6:598–606; translation from AG 206–13.
PT Philosophical Texts. Ed. Roger Woolhouse and Richard
Francks. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.
RH “Reﬂections on Hobbes,”appended to theTheodicy(1710).
Cited by section number as in G 6:388–99.
Riley Political Writings. Ed. and transl. Patrick Riley. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1972.
Robinet Malebranche et Leibniz: Relations Personnelles. Ed. André
Robinet. Paris: Vrin, 1955.
SLT The Shorter Leibniz Texts: A Collection of New Translations.
Ed. and transl. Lloyd Strickland. New York: Continuum, 2006.
T Theodicy(1710). Cited by section number as in G 6:102–365.
Ta “Summary of the Controversy Reduced to Formal Arguments,”
appended to theTheodicy(1710). G 6:376–87.
Toland A Collection of Several Pieces of Mr. John Toland, London:
Peele, 1726. [Contains a short Leibniz text as an appendix.]
Tp Preface to the Theodicy(1710). G 6:25–48.
W Leibniz Selections. Ed. and transl. Philip Wiener. New York:
Scribner, 1951.
WF Leibniz’s“New System”and Associated Texts. Ed. and transl.
Roger Woolhouse and Richard Francks. New York: Oxford
University Press, 1997.
(b) Texts by Authors Other Than Leibniz
AT René Descartes, Oeuvres de Descartes. 11 vols. Ed. Charles Adam
and Paul Tannery. Paris: Vrin, 1996. Cited by volume and page.
Concordia Luis de Molina,Liberi arbitrii cum gratiae donis, divina
praescientia, providentia, praedestinatione et reprobatione
concordia. Ed. Johannes Rabeneck. Oniae: Collegium
Maximum, 1953 [1588]. Cited by part, disputation, and
paragraph.
CT Thomas Aquinas, Corpus Thomisticum: Sancti Thomae de
Aquino Opera Omnia. Ed. Enrique Alarcon.www.corpustho
misticum.org/iopera.html
De Angelis Francisco Suárez,De Angelis.InOpera omnia. 28 vols. Ed.
Carolo Berton. Paris: Vivès, 1856–78, vol. 2. Cited by chapter
and section.
xiList of Abbreviations

DV Thomas Aquinas, De veritate. In CT. Cited by question and
article.
MD Francisco Suárez, Metaphysicarum disputationum.InOpera
omnia. 28 vols. Ed. Carolo Berton. Paris: Vivès, 1856–78, vols.
25–26. Cited by disputation, section, and paragraph.
OCC Francisco Suárez, On Creation, Conservation, and
Concurrence: Metaphysical Disputations 20, 21, and 22. Ed.
and transl. Alfred J. Freddoso. South Bend: St. Augustine
Press, 2002.
OEC Francisco Suárez, On Efﬁcient Causality: Metaphysical
Disputations 17, 18, and 19. Ed. and transl. Alfred
J. Freddoso. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994.
SCG Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles. In CT. Cited by
book, chapter, and paragraph.
ST Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae. In CT. Cited by part,
question, and article.
xii List of Abbreviations

Introduction
Gottfried Leibniz left behind a corpus of writings that is impressive both in size
and in breadth: it contains discussions of an enormous array of areas of inquiry,
both inside philosophy and out. One comparatively neglected portion of this
corpus is Leibniz’s contribution to what we would today call‘the philosophy of
action.’That is unfortunate because Leibniz’s discussions of agency are sophis-
ticated and often compelling. In fact, they are far more compelling than one would
expect, given the notorious eccentricity of Leibniz’s metaphysics. To mention just
a few examples of his eccentric metaphysical doctrines, take the claim that our
minds do not, strictly speaking, interact with our bodies or the denial of causal
interaction amongﬁnite substances. Or consider the doctrines that every substance
perceives everything that happens in the entire universe and that the only ulti-
mately real things are immaterial. Or take,ﬁnally, Leibniz’s rehabilitation of
substantial forms and teleology, which are rejected almost universally by modern
philosophers. All of these idiosyncrasies may suggest that Leibniz’sviewson
action are bound to be implausible and useless for advancing our understanding of
agency. Yet, we will see that quite the opposite is the case.
The philosophy of action, as practiced in the twentieth and twenty-ﬁrst
centuries, analyzes a broad range of philosophical issues surrounding the
notion of agency. These issues include the freedom of the will, shared agency,
moral responsibility, the distinction between things that we do and things that
merely happen to us, what it means to possess control over one’s actions, and
whether it is possible to act against one’s better judgment. As this book shows,
Leibniz discussed all of these topics. Many of his views on agency are directly
relevant to present-day debates, and we can learn a number of things about
agency from him.
1
Leibniz’s discussions of agency are more subtle and insightful than those of
most (if not all) of his contemporaries. And this is no coincidence: his
1
Analytic philosophers working in the philosophy of action are not typically aware of the fact that
Leibniz made important contributions to theirﬁeld. For instance, a recently published companion
to the philosophy of action (O’Connor and Sandis2010) contains chapters on the views of six
early modernﬁgures, but Leibniz is not among them. A notable exception is Susan Wolf, who
explicitly describes part of her project as inspired by Leibniz (1990: 103).
1

metaphysical idiosyncrasies force him to pay particularly close attention to
distinctions that his contemporaries simply take for granted. In many cases, this
leads Leibniz to theories that are far less eccentric than their metaphysical
foundations and that possess signiﬁcant plausibility and explanatory power.
One example is Leibniz’s compatibilist theory of freedom. While other early
modern compatibilists pay very little attention to internal impediments to free
agency,
2
Leibniz’s denial of inter-substance causation prompts him to take this
type of impediment extremely seriously. This, in turn, makes his account of
freedom, and his moral psychology more generally, far more powerful.
The resulting theory of freedom is an intriguing combination of agent-causal
views, the doctrine that being free means being determined by the good, and the
doctrine that free actions have toﬂow from the agent’s real self.
There are other cases where Leibniz arrives in familiar territory from extre-
mely eccentric points of departure. One is the distinction between what we today
call‘autonomous agency’and‘nonautonomous agency’; another is the closely
related distinction between acting and being acted upon. Leibniz discusses these
distinctions in terms of self-determination and end-directedness. Actions that we
would describe as autonomous are self-determined and end-directed in a more
demanding way than other actions. Similarly, active states differ from passive
states in their self-determination and end-directedness. Leibniz’sstartingpointis
his idiosyncratic claim thatﬁnite substances do not, in metaphysical strictness,
interact causally with each other. Because this doctrine makes it difﬁcult to
distinguish between activity and passivity, Leibniz is forced to be particularly
attentive to the different ways in which states can originate in aﬁnite substance.
That scrutiny pays off: Leibniz manages to isolate factors within an agent that can
undermine agency and autonomy. In fact, Leibniz’s account resembles that of
several prominent philosophers of action in our own day.
Some advantages of Leibniz’s solutions arise directly from his peculiar
metaphysical commitments and are hence unlikely to command broad appeal.
For instance, some of the particularly attractive aspects of his theory of
freedom depend on his doctrine thatﬁnite substances do not interact. Other
advantages, however, do not depend on eccentric Leibnizian commitments. For
example, Leibniz’s accounts of control, weakness of will, compulsion, and moral
responsibility–or, at least, their most central features–are compatible with a wide
range of metaphysical systems. These accounts are more likely to be appealing to
contemporary philosophers of action. Yet, it is fascinating and useful to explore
both types of advantages. Studying Leibniz’s theory of freedom, for instance, is
helpful in part because it illustrates thecosts of securing a particularly demanding
type of independence from external determination.
2
See Gary Watson, who argues that this is a widespread problem among classical compatibilists
(2004: 164).
2 Introduction

Let me make a few remarks on the book’s scope and methodology. First, it is
not my goal merely to mine Leibniz’s writings for doctrines that might be
useful to contemporary philosophers of action. Instead, the book attempts to
understand Leibniz on his own terms and within his historical context, uncon-
strained by the prospective utility of the resulting interpretation for contem-
porary philosophy. This often requires looking at Leibniz’s predecessors and
contemporaries. While I do think that many of Leibniz’s views on agency are
promising and helpful, defending their viability is not part of my project.
Relatedly, the book does not explore in detail the similarities and differences
between Leibniz’s theory of action and the theories of more recent philoso-
phers. Even though that is a worthwhile project, it would distract too much
from my primary aim of providing an interpretation of Leibniz’s views on
agency in their philosophical and historical context. Hence, the book merely
mentions some connections between Leibniz’s doctrines and the contemporary
philosophy of action, especially when these connections can help us understand
Leibniz’s views.
Given the book’s methodology, it may seem worryingly anachronistic to talk
of a Leibnizian philosophy of action in theﬁrst place. After all, Leibniz does
not appear to use the term‘philosophy of action’himself, nor was it a
commonly acknowledged subﬁeld of philosophy until the twentieth century.
Yet, that does not make this book’s project anachronistic. It is clear, after all,
that Leibniz answers many of the questions that we today associate with the
philosophy of action; it is similarly clear that these questions are closely
interrelated for Leibniz. Hence, treating Leibniz’s answers to those questions
as a unit is not only legitimate but also natural and useful. The term‘philosophy
of action’is merely a convenient way of referring to that set of questions.
However, using that term should not make us lose track of the fact that, for
Leibniz, there are intimate connections between human agency and the changes
that occur in animals and even in plants and other inanimate things. All
substances act, in a broad sense, and understanding more primitive kinds of
activity can help us understand human agency. As a result, signiﬁcant portions
ofChapters 1,2, and3are concerned quite generally with the causation of
changes in Leibnizian substances. The book thus goes beyond what we would
today categorize under‘philosophy of action.’
One further methodological choice concerns the parts of Leibniz’s corpus
that the book takes into consideration. Leibniz’s philosophical views undergo
a number of changes in the course of his long career. While there is a substantial
amount of controversy over the precise nature, signiﬁcance, and timing of these
changes, interpreters often divide Leibniz’s career into three broad stages: the
early period, the middle period, andﬁnally the late, mature, or monadological
period. The central focus of this book is the late period, which I take to begin
around the middle of the 1690s. This is mainly because texts from the mature
3Introduction

period contain particularly sophisticated and detailed discussions of agency.
It would, of course, be valuable and interesting to examine the development of
Leibniz’s philosophy of action, starting with his earliest philosophical writings.
Yet, it is not possible to delve into such developmental questions here, given the
breadth of topics that this book discusses, as well as the sheer size and
complexity of Leibniz’s corpus. While I occasionally bring up passages from
earlier texts when they are particularly helpful–for instance, when they answer
a question that the mature texts appear to leave open–my chief focus is on the
late period.
The structure of the book is the following.Chapter 1introduces readers to the
book’s protagonists: Leibniz’s simple and mind-like substances, or monads.
Leibniz describes the fundamental nature of monads in several different ways–
for instance, as substantial forms, entelechies, primitive forces, and laws of the
series. Even more perplexingly, he talks in many different ways about the
changing modiﬁcations of monads and the relation of these modiﬁcations to
their subjects. As one might expect, scholars disagree widely about the correct
interpretation of these fundamental building blocks of Leibniz’s philosophical
system.Chapter 1aims to untangle some of these issues in order to clear the
way for the work of future chapters. It will also serve to introduce nonspecia-
lists to the most central aspects of Leibniz’s ontology. The chapter pays
particularly close attention to appetitions and perceptions, the two fundamental
types of monadic states. It argues that the distinction between these two kinds
of states is important to Leibniz, that every state of a monad is efﬁciently
caused by that monad itself, and that a monad’s actions consist in its bringing
about new perceptions. The chapter also examines the different types of
appetitions and perceptions acknowledged by Leibniz, as well as the most
plausible way to understand the inﬂuence of one monadic state on another.
Then, inChapter 2, I explore a central commitment of Leibniz’s metaphysics
of action: the doctrine that all states of any substance originate within it, or arise
“out of its own depths.”All monads possess a far-reaching independence from
other things, which Leibniz calls‘spontaneity.’This doctrine is undeniably
radical. Many who encounter it–be it today or in Leibniz’s own time–ﬁnd it
absurd, in part because it is difﬁcult to square with the commonsensical
distinction between acting and being acted upon. Yet, Leibniz can capture
that difference by distinguishing three ways in which changes can originate
in a subject; I call them‘metaphysical spontaneity,’‘agent spontaneity,’and
‘rational spontaneity.’That threefold distinction, in turn, is tremendously
important for Leibniz’s philosophy of action, quite apart from helping him to
distinguish actions from passions. In particular, it allows him to claim that some
of the desires and emotions that occur in our minds are not ours in an important
sense. They are external to our true selves. As a result, Leibniz–like several
prominent philosophers of action today–can distinguish between situations in
4 Introduction

which we act autonomously and situations in which we are controlled by
desires or emotions that undermine our autonomy.
Chapter 3investigates a second aspect of monadic independence: monads
are not only the sources of their actions but also set the ends of those actions.
For Leibniz, all monadic activity is immanently end-directed, or an instance of
what is traditionally called‘ﬁnal causation’or‘teleology.’The chapterﬁrst
explores Leibniz’s motivations for viewing teleology as ubiquitous. Next, it
argues that there is a tight connection between spontaneity and teleology and
that it is useful to distinguish three different types of teleology, parallel to the
three types of spontaneity described inChapter 2. I call them‘metaphysical
teleology,’‘agent teleology,’and‘rational teleology,’respectively. This dis-
tinction, in turn, allows Leibniz to view end-directedness as ubiquitous without
anthropomorphizing the least perfect monads and without trivializing the end-
directedness of the most perfect actions. In fact, it allows him to make teleology
in its most demanding form a crucial component of his accounts of freedom,
control, and moral responsibility, as I argue in later chapters. Finally,Chapter 3
examines the lowest type of teleology in more detail. It argues, against the
overwhelming majority of interpreters, that monads perform many of their
actions simply because their natures prescribe these actions, not because these
actions are or appear good.
Chapter 4tackles another central issue in the philosophy of action: attri-
butability, that is, the question of when an action is properly attributed to an
agent. Here, one major obstacle for Leibniz is his endorsement of concurrent-
ism: he accepts the traditional theistic doctrine that creatures require God’s
cooperation for all of their actions. Yet, when God acts together with
a creature, the resulting actionissupposedtobethecreature’s action alone,
not God’s. This is particularly important for sinful actions, which for theolo-
gical reasons must not be attributed to God.Chapter 4examines how it is
possible for actions to be attributable only to the created agent, even though
God and the creature are acting together. It argues that we can answer that
question by taking seriously the roles thatﬁnal and formal causation play in
Leibniz’s account of agency.
Theﬁfth chapterfocuses on a type of agency that has long been a central topic
in the philosophy of action: free agency. Leibniz’s theory of freedom is what we
would today categorize as a version of agent-causal compatibilism. In other
words, Leibniz believes that freedom is compatible with determinism, and he
also holds that free actions are caused by agents rather than by events internal
or external to agents. One goal of the chapter is to elucidate Leibniz’scompati-
bilism. I will show that Leibniz’s metaphysical commitments allow him to
circumvent notorious shortcomings of other compatibilist theories. The
chapter’s second goal is to take a fresh look at the sense in which Leibnizian
free actions are contingent. I argue, against many other interpreters, that Leibniz
5Introduction

does not ultimately take freedom to be incompatible with necessitarianism
simpliciter. Instead, he takes it to be incompatible only with the kind of necessi-
tarianism according to which everything is necessitated in a value-neutral way.
Therefore, what Leibniz calls‘contingency’has an intimate connection to the
most demanding type ofﬁnal causation.
Chapter 6examines Leibniz’s responses to three notoriously difﬁcult
problems: (a) the problem of explaining in what sense free agents have
control over their actions, (b) the problem of explaining ostensibly weak-
willed actions, and (c) the problem ofdistinguishing weak-willed from
compelled actions. Leibniz explicitly discusses the notion of control–or, as
he usually calls it,‘mastery’–and, this chapter argues, he manages to make
room for a meaningful and desirable type of control. For Leibniz, we possess
control to the extent that our rational judgments and rational desires are able
to inﬂuence our actions. He acknowledges that we sometimes lack the ability
to control our actions–namely, when our passions are so powerful that they
would outweigh even the strongest rational desire. Yet, Leibniz insists, there
are indirect ways to make our rational desires succeed: we can take steps
ahead of time that drastically reduce the inﬂuence of the passions. Some of the
resources that allow Leibniz to give a convincing account of control also
allow him to acknowledge a form of weakness of will. That is surprising
because he holds that all intentional actions are determined by what the agent
perceives as good. Moreover, Leibnizcan capture the difference between
weakness and compulsion–a hard problem for determinists.
The seventh andﬁnal chapteraddresses two questions concerning moral
agency: what it takes to be a moral agent and what it takes to be morally
responsible for particular actions. Moral agency is intimately connected to
many of the concepts investigated in previous chapters, though these con-
nections are less straightforward than one might initially think. One parti-
cularly important result of this chapter’s discussion is that teleology is
central to Leibniz’s notion of moral agency. Another important result is
that agents are morally responsible for some of their unfree actions.
Finally, a particular kind of ability to do otherwise is required for moral
blame but not for moral praise.
Some general themes will emerge in this book. One important theme is that
the will, appetitions, and teleology are key players in Leibniz’s discussions of
agency. In order to understand what it means to act and what differentiates
different types of activity, we need to look not just at cognition but also at
appetition. This goes against existing scholarship on Leibniz’s moral psychol-
ogy; with a few notable exceptions, other scholars focus almost exclusively on
perceptions and the intellect. Another, related general theme of the book is that
Leibniz is less of an intellectualist than commonly thought. While this comes
up in several chapters, it becomes particularly clear inChapter 6, where I argue
6 Introduction

that knowing what is best, all things considered, is often insufﬁcient for doing
the right thing. Leibniz acknowledges that taming our irrational passions
requires us to be extremely resourceful. For instance, we sometimes need to
distract ourselves, cultivate beneﬁcial passions, and use sensory images to our
advantage. He is far less optimistic than one might initially expect about our
intellect’s ability to take on the passions directly.
7Introduction

1 Monads and Their Actions
The protagonists of this book are monads, or Leibnizian simple substances.
Despite their simplicity, it is surprisingly difﬁcult toﬁgure out what exactly
these monads are and how they act. Leibniz describes the fundamental
nature of monads in a number of different ways: as substantial forms,
entelechies, primitive forces, and laws of the series, to name just a few.
And as if that were not confusing enough, it is unclear how exactly Leibniz
understands the changing modiﬁcations of monads and the relation of these
modiﬁcations to their subjects. It is no surprise, therefore, that there is no
consensus about the correct interpretation of these fundamental building
blocks of Leibniz’s philosophical system. The present chapter aims to
address these issues in order to shed light on some of the most basic features
of monadic agency and clear the way for the work of future chapters.
Of course, I cannot–and do not need to–answer all of the numerous
questions about Leibniz’s fundamental ontology. Instead, I focus on the
questions that are directly relevant for my interpretation of Leibniz’s philo-
sophy of action.
One can learn a lot about what monads are and how they act by looking
into the reasons that Leibniz cites for rejecting a purely mechanistic view
of nature. These reasons include accounting for the reality, unity, and
activity of natural things. Because understanding these reasons proves
helpful for my interpretation of monadic agency, I will examine them
brieﬂy. Next, I turn to some of the ways in which Leibniz characterizes
monads: his claims that they are similar to Scholastic substantial forms and
Aristotelianﬁrst entelechies, that they consist in primitive force, that their
only internal qualities are perceptions and appetitions, and that they con-
tain their entire histories. I will also sketch some of the most important
differences between the three types of monads that Leibniz distinguishes,
that is, bare monads, nonrational souls, and minds. Finally, I consider the
types of causation that are involved in monadic activity. All of these
elements will become important later in the book, though they are also
interesting in their own right.
8

1 The Fundamental Nature of Monads
Let us start at the beginning–the very beginning, in fact. For Leibniz, it all
begins with God and his ideas. Leibniz’s God is all-powerful, all-knowing, and
perfectly good: he can do whatever is metaphysically possible, knows every-
thing that there is to know, and wills only what he recognizes as best. God’s
power and goodness will take center stage in later chapters where I discuss
divine freedom and the contingency of the created world. For now, however, let
us focus on God’s knowledge, or his intellect. God’s omniscience, according to
Leibniz,“encompasses every idea and every truth, that is, all things–simple or
complex–that can be an object of the understanding”(CD 13). In other words,
God eternally possesses ideas of all metaphysical or logical possibilities, as
well as knowledge of all necessary truths (see COE 21; letter to Morell,
September 29, 1698, A 1.16.164). As a matter of fact, Leibniz views the divine
intellect as the source or ground of all possibilities and necessary truths: with-
out God’s intellect, nothing would be possible or true (M 46; CD 7f.; T 184;
189). We must be careful, however, not to confuse this dependence on the
divine intellect with the Cartesian doctrine that God creates eternal truths.
Leibniz’s God does not ground these truths by willing that they be true, but
merely by having an intellect that contains them.
Because God’s intellect contains everything that can be known, it also
contains knowledge of the goodness and badness of all different possibilities:
the ideas in God’s intellect“represent to him the good and the evil, the
perfection and the imperfection, the order and the disorder, the congruity and
the incongruity of possibles”(COE 21). As a result, the divine intellect can also
compare different possibilities and judge them with respect to their goodness.
And that is precisely what God does in order toﬁgure out what to create: he
judges, based on his perfect knowledge of all possibilities, which possible
world is the best.
1
Because of God’s perfect goodness, the world that he judges
to be best is the world that he subsequently creates.
What exactly does God create when he creates a world? In Leibniz’s mature
writings, the answer is that God creates an inﬁnity of monads–that is, an
inﬁnity of simple, immaterial, mind-like substances.
2
Monads are the funda-
mental building blocks of the created world, and everything else that has a place
in Leibniz’s ontology depends on, or is grounded in, them. One crucial aspect of
the relationship between the divine intellect andﬁnite monads is that eachﬁnite
monad corresponds exactly to an idea in God’s intellect. As already seen, the
1
How precisely God does this is controversial and complicated. Yet, for present purposes, we need
not worry about the details.
2
God himself is a monad, in fact (see a letter to Bierling, August 12, 1711, G 7:502; supplement to
a letter to Des Bosses, February 15, 1712, LDB 233f.), though, of course, he differs from created
monads in a number of important ways.
9The Fundamental Nature of Monads

divine intellect eternally contains ideas of all possibilities, which include ideas
of possibleﬁnite substances. God’s ideas of these possible substances, more-
over, contain information about every change that these substances will (or
would) undergo if they are created. In the middle period, Leibniz usually calls
these ideas‘complete concepts’; in his mature writings, he more frequently
calls them‘possibles’or‘essences.’When God creates the world, he actualizes
some of these possibles, namely the ones that together constitute the best of all
possible worlds.
One signiﬁcant complication for understanding the fundamental nature of
created monads is that the details of Leibniz’s theory of substance, or at least
the terminology he uses to express it, are not entirely stable, even within the
mature period. In some texts, Leibniz identiﬁes monads with entelechies or
substantial forms (e.g. M 18; 63; T 396); in others, he describes monads as
made up of entelechies or substantial forms together with passive force, or with
matter (e.g. ONI 11). Despite this apparent instability, however, a large portion
of Leibniz’s ontology remains the same. As we will see later, he thinks
throughout the mature period thatﬁnite substances possess, or are,
3
primitive
active and passive forces,
4
from which all of their modiﬁcations arise, and that
their only fundamental internal modiﬁcations are appetitions and perceptions.
The ways in which he distinguishes rational monads from lower monads, as
well as his characterization of different types of appetition and perception,
appear to be stable as well, at least in the most important respects.
1.1 Reality, Unity, and Activity
The essay“New System of Nature”is Leibniz’sﬁrst published account of his
mature views. It is an autobiographical account of the process that led him to
realize that there must be something over and above matter, namely true
unities.
5
He lists three closely related reasons for positing immaterial unities:
(a) matter is not in itself fully real, (b) matter lacks unity, and (c) matter lacks
activity. Theﬁrst two reasons are closely related; Leibniz argues that“a multi-
tude can derive its reality only fromtrue unities,”but that matter, since it is
3
Even though sometimes Leibniz talks of substances as possessing primitive forces, that is
probably misleading. There is good evidence that, strictly speaking, substancesareprimitive
forces. I argue this in Jorati (forthcoming b). However, I will bracket this complication for the
purposes of this book because it does not appear to impact my interpretation of monadic agency.
4
God is different fromﬁnite substances in this respect: he does not possess any passive force, but
only active force. See, for instance, a letter to Remond, February 11, 1715 (G 3:636/L 659).
5
Leibniz does not actually use the term‘monad’in“New System,”but he is clearly describing the
entities that he elsewhere calls‘monads.’Theﬁrst mention of the term‘monad’appears to be in
an unﬁnished letter to the Marquis de l’Hôpital, dated July 22, 1695 (GM 2:295); see Rutherford
(1995b: 166n24), Garber (2015: 165). Theﬁrst published text in which the term is used is
“On Nature Itself”(1698).
10 Monads and Their Actions

inﬁnitely divisible, is devoid of true unities (“New System,”G 4:478/AG 139;
see also G 4:482/AG 142 and ONI 11). Leibniz claims, in other words, that
a purely material thing cannot possess genuine unity and that what lacks
genuine unity is not real.
The third reason Leibniz cites for introducing immaterial entities–namely,
that matter alone cannot ground activity–is particularly crucial for Leibnizian
metaphysics because he holds that activity is a necessary condition for sub-
stancehood (e.g. ONI 9; T 393;“New System,”G 4:485/AG 144; NE 65).
6
Hence, bodies can be substances only if they are active. To show that mechan-
ical philosophy cannot account for activity, Leibniz argues that activity requires
active force, which matter does not possess (e.g. letter to de Volder, April 3,
1699, LDV 77;“Conversation of Philarete and Ariste,”G 6:587/AG 263).
Elsewhere, Leibniz elaborates on this line of argument: action cannot be
a modiﬁcation of something passive because otherwise there would be more
reality in the modiﬁcation than in that which is modiﬁed. Thus, since matter is
passive, action cannot be a modiﬁcation of matter. If bodies act, they must
possess something over and above matter, namely an active principle, of which
actions are modiﬁcations.
7
This argument is valid, but Leibniz’s opponents
might simply grant that bodies are passive things that are moved around by
other bodies. They could concede that bodies lack activity in any more
demanding sense: bodies do not move themselves, but they move each other.
Leibniz would have to say more to argue that there is something wrong with
that picture of the natural world.
8
The argument is nevertheless helpful because
it sheds light on the relation between actions and the underlying active princi-
ple, which Leibniz typically identiﬁes with primitive force–an issue to which
I will return later.
Leibniz’s critique of occasionalism contains another argument for the exis-
tence of active forces in nature. One problem with occasionalism, Leibniz
insists, is that it undermines the absolute perfection of God. After all, when
an omnipotent being decrees the laws of nature, that decree should leave
a permanent impression inﬁnite things.
9
Instead of having created, by his
original decree, substances that naturally follow the divine laws, the God of the
occasionalists constantly needs to intervene to ensure compliance with his
6
For this reason, Leibniz says in several places that denying activity to created things is
tantamount to substance monism; see, for instance, ONI 15; remarks on Lamy, G 4:590/WF
164; reply to Bayle 1705, G 4:568/PT 252; letter to Lelong, February 5, 1712, Robinet 421.
7
Leibniz provides this argument in“On Body and Force”(G 4:397/AG 254), a letter to Jaquelot
(March 22, 1703, G 3:457/WF 201), two letters to de Volder (June 30, 1704, LDV 307; April 3,
1699, LDV 75f.), and a letter to Bernoulli (November 18, 1698, A 3.7.944/AG 169).
8
For a helpful discussion of the reasons Leibniz may have had for rejecting that kind of picture,
see Carriero (2008).
9
Among other texts, see ONI 6;“On Body and Force,”G 4:396/AG 253f.; letter to Basnage de
Beauval, G 3:122/WF 65; letter to Hansch, July 25, 1707, E 2:446/L 593.
11The Fundamental Nature of Monads

laws. In fact, he needs to intervene in ways that go beyond the natural powers of
created things. That, Leibniz complains, is a very imperfect state of affairs.
A truly perfect creator would make creatures that possess active forces and act
in accordance with God’s decrees by themselves, requiring only divine
concurrence.
10
Finally, Leibniz sometimes argues for active forces from the Principle of
Continuity, that is, the principle that everything in nature is uniform (e.g. NE
307). Based on this principle, Leibniz reasons that since there is activity in us–
we know that we“elicit in ourselves many thoughts and volitions”(ONI 10)–
we should conclude that there are similar active principles in all other created
substances. As he puts it in a letter to Damaris Masham,“nature would show
little consistency if this particle of matter which makes up the human body were
the only thing endowed with something which would make it inﬁnitely differ-
ent from everything else...This leads me to think that there are such active
beings everywhere in matter”(May 1704, G 3:339/WF 204; similarly in ONI
10; letter to de Volder, June 30, 1704, LDV 307; letter to Queen Sophie
Charlotte, May 8, 1704, G 3:343f./WF 221; G 7:329/SLT 64).
This short survey of Leibniz’s reasons for rejecting the mechanistic view and
introducing monads shows that monads must have the following characteris-
tics: they are true unities, indivisible, immaterial, and active. Insofar as
a composite thing possesses any reality, unity, or activity, it must derive them
from monads. Moreover, monads should be understood as in some ways
analogous to the human soul.
1.2 Substantial Forms and Entelechies
Leibniz uses a wide variety of terms to explain what monads are. In“New
System,”for instance, he describes the entities he is postulating as, among other
things, Aristotelianﬁrst entelechies, primitive forces, and substantial forms
(G 4:478f./AG 139). Given what I said about monads earlier, these designations
make sense. First, when Leibniz compares monads to Aristotelian entelechies,
he must have in mind the notion weﬁnd, for instance, inDe Anima, where
Aristotle claims that the soul is theﬁrst entelechy of the body (De AnimaII.1,
412
a
27–28). For Aristotle, this appears to mean that it is a state of completion or
perfection.
11
In the“Monadology,”Leibniz states explicitly that he uses the
term‘entelechy’for his simple substances because they contain“a certain
perfection”(M 18; see also T 87).
12
Since monads are supposed to be
10
I will say much more about divine concurrence inChapter 4.
11
See Johnson (2005:85–90) for a discussion of the meaning and etymology of‘entelechy’in
Aristotle.
12
In other texts, Leibniz identiﬁes‘ﬁrst entelechy’with primitive active force; see e.g.“On Body
and Force,”G 4:395/AG 252; NE 169.
12 Monads and Their Actions

analogous to souls, and since they are supposed to ground the reality of organic
bodies, it makes sense for Leibniz to borrow the Aristotelian term. The reason
why Leibniz also calls monads‘primitive forces’ is presumably that they are
supposed to ground actions or changing modiﬁ cations. Thisﬁts well with
Leibniz’s argument, sketched earlier, that actions must be modiﬁcations of
some active principle and therefore cannot be modiﬁ cations of matter.
Finally, part of the reason why Leibniz calls his simple entities‘substantial
forms’is presumably that he understands monads as the entities that–like
Scholastic substantial forms–account for the unity and reality of things. Just as
for some Scholastics, matter without form is mere potentiality and hence lacks
reality, Leibniz argues that Cartesian matter is not real because it is entirely
passive. To get something real, there must be monads.
13
In several texts, in fact,
Leibniz claims that simple substances consist of substantial forms together with
prime matter. He often identiﬁes the substantial form with primitive active
force and prime matter with primitive passive force.
14
According to these texts,
Leibnizian monads are like Scholastic substantial forms in an additional
respect: they combine with matter to form a complete substance.
15
In addition to prime matter, or primitive passive force, Leibniz often
acknowledges secondary matter, which is an organic machine or body com-
posed of simple substances.
16
Accordingly, a complete animal or plant consists
of what Leibniz sometimes calls a central (or dominant) monad, or a primary
entelechy–the substantial form or“soul”of the organism–and a multitude of
subordinate monads that constitute the organism’s body (e.g. letter to de Volder,
June 20, 1703, LDV 265; PNG 3f.; NE 220). Because Leibniz sometimes
claims that everyﬁnite monad has a body (e.g. PNG 3; letter to Bierling,
August 12, 1711, G 7:502), this is another way in which monads are analogous
to substantial forms. They are the organizing and unifying principles of living
things.
What is not entirely clear, however, is whether an organism consisting of
a central monad and a multitude of subordinate monads counts as a substance.
The central monad does appear to convey a certain degree of unity on the body;
this sets organisms apart from mere aggregates that lack central monads. Yet, it
13
Both monads and Scholastic substantial forms are also supposed to explain the identity of things
over time as well as the characteristic properties and activities of things. I will come back to the
latter when discussingﬁnal causation inChapter 3. For the former, seefootnote 23.
14
Among other places, he identiﬁes them in“On Body and Force,” G 4:395/AG 252; letter to
Jaquelot, March 22, 1703, G 3:458/WF 201.
15
For an excellent discussion of the status of prime matter, see Antognazza (2014). She argues
convincingly that prime matter (or primitive passive force) is simply the imperfection or
limitation in active force. I provide some additional reasons in Jorati (forthcoming b).
16
This becomes very clear in a letter to de Volder, June 20, 1703, LDV 265; see also ONI 12;
“Supplement to the Explanation of the New System,”G 4:572/WF 138; letter to Jaquelot,
March 22, 1703, G 3:457/WF 200f.
13The Fundamental Nature of Monads

is controversial whether that degree of unity is sufﬁcient for substancehood.
17
Leibniz, at times, suggests that such organisms are substances, and at other
times, he insists that only individual monads count as substances. Fortunately,
I do not need to resolve that controversy for present purposes. What matters
here is merely that monads are substances and that there is a special relationship
between the central and the subordinate monads in organisms. I will shed some
light on the nature of that special relationship inChapter 2.
1.3 Primitive Forces, Laws of the Series, and Natures
Let us look in more detail at‘primitive force,’one of the terms that Leibniz uses
in describing monads, because it is crucial for understanding the way in which
monads act. As already seen, Leibniz argues that activity must be a modiﬁca-
tion of an active principle in the agent. Without such an active principle,
a substance would not be able to act. Leibniz typically calls this active principle
‘primitive active force’; a substance’s changing modiﬁcations–which Leibniz
calls‘derivative forces’–inhere in a primitive active force that is unchanging
(see letter to de Volder, June 30, 1704, LDV 307; T 87; 396). But what exactly
is this primitive active force? In“On Nature Itself,”Leibniz says that it is
“analogous to a soul”and that it is“a certain urge [nisus]”or“an inherent law,
impressed by divine decree”(ONI 12). This calls to mind Leibniz’s argument
against occasionalism that we considered earlier: a perfect God would give his
creatures natural powers that enable them to follow the divine laws; the decree
of a perfect God would leave a permanent impression in creatures.
In“New System,”it becomes clear that primitive force is identical to the
natural powers of creatures that God impressed on them at creation. Leibniz
stresses that at creation, God gave eachﬁnite substance“a nature or an internal
force that can produce in it, in an orderly way...everything that will happen to
it...without the help of any created being”(G 4:485/AG 144; similarly in
a reply to Bayle, G 4:548/PT 237; ONI 12). He sometimes calls this self-
sufﬁciency of monads‘spontaneity,’
18
and the internal force, the‘law of the
series’(e.g. in two letters to de Volder: January 21, 1704, LDV 287, and April 3,
1699, LDV 75).
19
In a letter to Bayle, he adds that every substance must have
“its own true and internal force of acting”and that“the nature of substance
consists in this ordered tendency [tendence reglée] that it received at the start
and from which the phenomena arise in order”(G 3:58). While the details are
not entirely straightforward, the idea appears to be roughly the following. All of
the natural–that is, nonmiraculous–changes that occur in aﬁnite substance
17
For helpful discussions, see e.g. Lodge (2015) and Look and Rutherford (2007).
18
I will say much more about spontaneity inChapter 2.
19
For helpful discussions of this law of the series, see Kulstad (1990: 139ff.), Rutherford (2013),
and Adams (1994: 79ff.).
14 Monads and Their Actions

result from something internal to the substance. The internal principle of
change, moreover, can beﬁttingly described as the substance’s nature, as
a law, as an ordered tendency, or as primitive force.
Leibniz also claims in several places that all future and past states of
a substance are contained in it at the present time. Sometimes he expresses
this doctrine by saying that the substance contains traces of all its past states
and marks of all its future states; some interpreters call this the‘doctrine of
marks and traces.’Leibniz’s favorite metaphor for this doctrine is that the
present is“pregnant”with the future (e.g. M 22; PNG 13; a letter to de
Volder, January 21, 1704, LDV 287). Yet, some texts show that this talk of
“containing”future and past states should not be understood completely
literally. For instance, he writes to Jaquelot that“[t]he future is in the past
only as an inclination in that past towards the production of the future”
(April 28, 1704, G 3:473/WF 182; see also September 4, 1704, G 6:559/WF
188).
20
This doctrine should not come as a surprise. After all, Leibniz is
a determinist and holds thatﬁnite substances do not interact.
21
In a closed
and perfectly deterministic system, it is always possible to predict all
future states and retrodict all past states from the present state and the
relevant laws. Leibniz describes his doctrine to Burcher de Volder in almost
exactly these terms:“the law of the series shows where it must reach by
continuing its progression, i.e., that, with the starting point and the law of
progression given, the terms will be produced in order”(January 21, 1704,
LDV 289).
A substance’s law of the series, then, makes it possible to know all of the past
and future states of the substance from its present state. As one might expect–
given that‘law of the series’is simply a designation for the nature of the
substance, or its primitive force–Leibniz sometimes makes an analogous point
about creaturely natures: all of a substance’s past and future states can be
derived from its nature. This is particularly clear in“On Body and Substance
Truly One,”probably written in 1690:“In every substance there is nothing
other than that nature or primitive force from which follows the series of its
internal operations. This series, i.e. all of its past and future states, can be
recognized from any state of the substance, i.e. from its nature”(A 6.4.1673/
SLT 53).
While many questions remain unanswered about the different ways in which
Leibniz describes the ground of monadic changes, the basic contours of his
view appear to be the following. Natural changes in a monad arise from its
20
Thisﬁts well with my interpretation: a sufﬁciently intelligent being can see the future in the
present state of a substance because it can see that the substance will, given its nature (which
consists in force or inclination), produce that particular series of future states. See also a letter to
Bayle, G 4:552/PT 239.
21
I will say much more about this denial of interaction inChapter 2.
15The Fundamental Nature of Monads

primitive force, which is at least partially active
22
and unchanging,
23
and
renders intelligible the entire series of changes occurring within the monad.
2 Monadic States
Having brieﬂy examined the fundamental nature of monads, we can now
explore the actions, or changing modiﬁcations, of these monads. Leibniz
claims in several places that perceptions and appetitions are the only internal
qualities of monads (e.g. M 17; PNG 2; letter to Remond, 1714, G 3:622;
letter to de Volder, June 30, 1704, LDV 307), that monads are never without
perceptions and appetitions, and that all monads have them (e.g. in a letter to
Bourguet, December 1714, G 3:574f./L 662f.). Let us examine what Leibniz
means by‘perception’and‘appetition,’what types of perceptions and
appetitions there are, and how perceptions and appetitions relate to one
another.
2.1 Perceptions
For Leibniz, a perception is simply“[t]he passing state which involves and
represents a multitude in the unity or in the simple substance”(M 14;
similarly in PNG 2; letter to Bourguet, December 1714, G 3:574f./L 662f.;
letter to Remond, 1714, G 3:622; G 7:329f./SLT 65) or“the internal state
of the monad representing external things”(PNG 4). An internal state of
a monad represents an external thingwhen there is a particular type of
correspondence between them: Leibniz writes to Rudolf Christian Wagner
that perception consists in the“correspondence of internal and external, or
representation of the external in the internal, of the composite in the simple, of
multiplicity in unity”(June 4, 1710, G 7:529/W 505). In another text, Leibniz
tells us even more explicitly what it is for one thing to express, or represent,
another:“it is sufﬁcient for the expression of one thing in another that there
should be a certain constant relational law, by which particulars in the one can
be referred to corresponding particulars in the other”(“Metaphysical
Consequences”§11, C 15/MP 176f.). This suggests that perception involves
an isomorphism. Whenever there is a lawful correspondence between the
22
Inﬁnite substances, primitive passive force is plausibly part of this nature as well.
Accordingly, the natures ofﬁnite substances are only partially active, whereas God’s nature
is fully active.
23
Additional evidence that the primitive force is unchanging comes from a letter to de Volder:
“nothing is permanent in [individual things] except the very law that involves the continued
succession”(January 21, 1704, LDV 289; similarly LDV 287 and 291). Thatﬁts well with
Leibniz’s claim that in order to account for the identity of a substance through change, we must
postulate something like a substantial form that remains the same through that change (e.g. NE
231f.; ONI 8; see Adams1994: 313f. and 79f., Di Bella2015).
16 Monads and Their Actions

internal variety in a monad and external things, the monad perceives these
things.
24
Perceptions do not have to be conscious, however.
25
Most of the perceptions
ofﬁnite substances are unconscious as well as, in Leibniz’s terminology,
“confused.”Only some are distinct. Leibniz appears to view distinct percep-
tions as perceptions that capture one’s attention and stand out from the inﬁnite
mass of simultaneous perceptions. Accordingly, it is helpful to think of distinct
perceptions asdistinctive.
26
Leibniz sometimes uses the terms‘distinct’and
‘confused’as relative notions. He says, for instance, that our perceptions“are
sometimes more and sometimes less clear and distinct”(letter to Queen Sophie
Charlotte, May 8, 1704, G 3:344/WF 221).
27
He also compares degrees of
distinctness across monads. For instance, he claims thatﬁnite monads are
“differentiated by the degree of their distinct perceptions”(M 60) and that
one substance can be said to act on another substance insofar as the perceptions
of the former are more distinct (“A Specimen of Discoveries,”A 6.4.1620/MP
79). This leads us to another important feature of monadic perceptions. Monads
perceive not only some external objects–they perceive the entire world.
Leibniz, therefore, calls each monad a“mirror of the universe”(M 56). Yet,
eachﬁnite monad perceives only a small portion of the universe distinctly,
which constitutes its point of view.
2.2 Appetitions
Let us now turn to the second type of internal modiﬁcation of monads, which
Leibniz typically calls‘appetition.’
28
Because appetitions have received much
less attention in the secondary literature than perceptions, and because appeti-
tions feature prominently in Leibniz’s philosophy of action, it will prove help-
ful to investigate them more thoroughly than we have investigated perceptions.
First of all, it is important to note the terminology that Leibniz employs to
refer to appetitions. He often uses the terms‘appetite’(Latin:appetitus, French:
appetit)or‘appetition’(Latin:appetitio, French:appetition), apparently inter-
changeably, for all tendencies in monads (“Table of Deﬁnitions,”C 472).
At other times, he reserves the term‘appetition’for imperfect, unconscious
24
Simmons provides a more detailed discussion of Leibnizian perception as an isomorphism
(2001: 67ff.; see also Jorgensen2015, Swoyer1995: 84f., Kulstad1977: 73f.,2006: 414ff.).
25
This becomes clear, e.g., in M 14 and PNG 4. It is controversial what exactly consciousness is
for Leibniz. See, for instance, Jorgensen (2009,2011b), Simmons (2001,2011), Gennaro
(1999), Kulstad (1991), and Barth (2011).
26
This is suggested, e.g., in NE 53f.; PNG 13. See also Simmons (2001: 57) and Jorgensen
(2011a: 192).
27
Bolton’sdeﬁnition captures this well (2008: 121).
28
There is some overlap between my discussion of appetitions in this chapter and Jorati (forth-
coming a).
17Monadic States

inclinations and contrasts it with‘volition’(e.g. NE 173; 189; 194; revision
note, A 6.1.286/L 92n18). To make things less confusing, I will use the terms
‘appetition’and‘appetite’in the general sense for all monadic inclinations.
Leibniz also uses other terms to refer to or describe appetitions: the French and
Latin counterparts of the terms‘tendency’(letter to Wolff, GLW 56; letter to
Remond, G 3:622; letter to Bourguet, G 3:575/L 663),‘inclination’(reply to
Bayle, G 4:550/WF 105; Gr 480/SLT 97; CD 138; NE 351), and‘desire’(NE
192;“Deﬁnitions,”A 6.4.310; Beeley 11), the French termeffort(NE 172f.;
192), andﬁnally, the Latin termsconatus(‘Table of Deﬁnitions,’C 491) and
percepturitio(letter to Wolff, GLW 56).
Leibniz deﬁnes appetitions as a monad’s“tendencies to go from one percep-
tion to another”(PNG 2) or as the“action of the internal principle which brings
about the change or passage from one perception to another”(M 15).
29
In one
way or another, then, appetitions are supposed to help explain
30
the changes in
monadic perceptions. When a soul transitions naturally from pleasure to pain,
for instance, this change is explained–at least in part–by the appetitions of
that soul. That of course raises the question of how appetitions relate to
primitive active force, which Leibniz also views as explaining the entire series
of changes. The deﬁnition of‘appetition’from“Monadology”§15 can help us
answer that question: appetitions are the actions of an“internal principle,”that
is, presumably, of the monad’s primitive active force. This suggests that
appetitions are derivative active forces: they are the changing modiﬁcations
of the underlying, unchanging principle of action.
31
One problem with understanding the way in which appetitions explain
perceptual change is that Leibniz views perceptual transitions, like all natural
transitions, as continuous (see e.g. M 10; 13; letter to Johann Bernoulli,
September 30, 1698, A 3.7.912/LDV 11; NE 56f.). Just as a line is not
composed out of points, a perceptual series is not composed out of instanta-
neous perceptions (see e.g. note on Foucher’s objection, G 4:491/AG 146; NE
152). Even though we may be able meaningfully to talk about instantaneous
perceptual states, just as we can talk about points, there is strictly speaking no
29
Elsewhere, he deﬁnes‘appetite’as“the endeavour of acting tending towards new perception”
(G 7:330/SLT 66); similarly in a letter to Bourguet, August 5, 1715, G 3:581/L 664.
30
InSection 4, I will consider whether this explanation should be understood in terms of
causation.
31
See Rutherford (2005: 165), Adams (1994: 380), as well as Kulstad (1990: 136), who also think
that appetitions are best understood as derivative active forces. Pauline Phemister disagrees,
however: she claims that even though perceptions and appetitions are modiﬁcations of primitive
forces, they are not what Leibniz calls‘derivative forces’; instead, she claims, Leibniz uses the
term‘derivative force’exclusively for the forces attributed to bodies (2005: 214 and 220). Yet,
this seems to be merely a terminological issue; Phemister agrees that appetitions are modiﬁca-
tions of primitive force. Moreover, as McDonough shows (2016a: 11), Leibniz does appear to
use the term‘derivative force’for metaphysical forces in at least one text, namely a letter to de
Volder (January 21, 1704, LDV 286).
18 Monads and Their Actions

such thing as a transition from one such instantaneous state to its immediate
successor. After all, there are further perceptions between any two instanta-
neous perceptual states.
32
As a result, appetitions cannot, strictly speaking, be
the tendencies to transition from one instantaneous perceptual state to the next
because there is never an immediately adjacent state.
33
This means that appeti-
tions cannot be what we might call‘short-term tendencies’: tendencies to
transition directly from one instantaneous state to the next. If an instantaneous
appetition leads to an instantaneous perceptual state, that perceptual state must
always be separated from the appetition by a series of other perceptions.
There are also independent reasons for holding that at least some appetitions
are what we might call‘long-term tendencies’: tendencies to transition from
one state to a later one that is not adjacent to it.
34
Take for instance someone’s
desire to lose weight, learn a foreign language, or earn a college degree. Those
desires should presumably be some kind of appetition, but they are not simply
appetitions for an immediate transition to a new perception. Instead, they are
appetitions for a certain outcome that can be achieved only via a series of other
transitions.
Indeed, in several texts, Leibniz acknowledges the existence of long-term
appetitions. He typically does this by drawing a distinction between the end and
the means: an appetition for some end often gives rise to appetitions for the
necessary means. This is particularly explicit in a table of deﬁnitions from the
early 1670s, where Leibniz deﬁnes‘end’and‘means’as follows:“the END is
that, an appetite for which brings about an appetite for another thing. This other
thing is called the MEANS”(A 6.2.492). At least some appetitions, according
to this early text, are directed at ends that they bring about not directly but via
appetitions for means to those ends. In another table of deﬁnitions, written
about 30 years later, Leibniz seems to paint a similar picture:“theendis that, an
appetition for which is the sufﬁcient cause of an endeavor [conatus] in the
agent”(C 472). Becauseconatusis either a synonym for‘appetite’or refers to
a kind of appetite (see e.g. NE 172; Beeley 11; G 7:330/SLT 66), this passage is
further evidence that some appetitions aim not at a state to which the substance
can transition immediately but rather at an end that can be brought about only
indirectly, via other appetitions and hence other perceptions.
Another helpful passage, which is further evidence for the existence of long-
term appetitions, stems from a letter to Nicolaas Hartsoeker. Appetitions for
actions that require the cooperation of one’s bodily organs can succeed, Leibniz
tells Hartsoeker, only if“the appetitions, and consequently the perceptions to
which they give rise,...go into perfect detail with respect to all that happens in
32
InSection 4.2, I will address the question of whether this undermines the reality of perceptions.
33
Whipple (2010b) explores this issue in great depth and draws a rather radical conclusion; I will
discuss his solution inSection 4.2.
34
See Kulstad (1990: 145), who argues this as well.
19Monadic States

the organs”(G 3:509). Whenever one’s appetition is not perfectly detailed,
Leibniz goes on to say, it is not“a perfect and entire appetite for this whole
object,”and therefore, it is not“an appetition that the body is obliged to follow
and to execute.”He points out that a perfectly detailed appetition is one that
tends not only toward the end but also toward“the means and the means of the
means”(G 3:510). This makes sense: my appetition to raise my arm succeeds
only if I also possess appetitions for the requisite means, such as particular
muscle contractions, as well as any necessary means to those means, and so on.
After all, appetitions are simply tendencies. If for some reason I lack the
tendency for one of those means, I will not succeed in raising my arm.
An equally crucial thing to note about appetitions is that Leibnizian sub-
stances have multiple simultaneous appetitions. This must be the case because,
as we saw earlier, each monad constantly represents everything in the entire
universe, and the universe is inﬁnitely complex. As a result, a monad must have
inﬁnitely many perceptions at any time, or–what comes down to the same
thing, for present purposes–one inﬁnitely complex perceptual state. Because
appetitions are tendencies to transition from one perceptual state to another,
monads must also possess inﬁnitely many appetitions, or an inﬁnitely complex
appetitive state, at any time.
35
Leibniz says this explicitly in theNew Essays
(NE 110; see also a letter to Masson, G 6:627/AG 228).
Let us now examine how Leibniz thinks of the conﬂict among simultaneous
appetitions. This is signiﬁcant for several aspects of his theory of monadic
agency. That there must be some kind of conﬂict becomes clear in the
“Monadology”: Leibniz says that“the appetite cannot always completely
reach the whole perception toward which it tends, but it always obtains
something of it, and reaches new perceptions”(M 15). According to this
passage, then, there are cases in which an appetition does not fully succeed.
The most promising explanation for this is the presence of at least one other
incompatible appetition. Leibniz suggests this himself in another passage and
employs a useful analogy: he comparesthe competition between different
mental tendencies to the way that“in mechanics, the composite movement
results from all the tendencies that occur simultaneously in one and the same
moving thing, and satisﬁes each one equally, in so far as it is possible to do all
at once”(T 22). That might explain what Leibniz means when he says that
even though an appetite may fail to reach the entire perception at which it
aims,“it always obtains something of it, and reaches new perceptions”
(M 15). The picture, then, seems straightforward: when there are tendencies
in a substance that cannot all be satisﬁed simultaneously, these tendencies
35
Jeffrey McDonough (2016b: 108f.) argues that there is only one inﬁnitely complex global
appetition. Yet, for our purposes, it does not matter how we individuate appetitions. To simplify
things, I will talk of inﬁnitely many simultaneous appetitions, but what I say works equally well
for aspects or components of one global appetition.
20 Monads and Their Actions

compete with each other analogously to the way in which physical forces
compete.
36
Thinking of the competition among appetitions by analogy with conﬂicting
physical forces certainly helps. Yet, due to the presence of long-term appeti-
tions, the picture must ultimately be more complicated than that.
37
After all,
a long-term appetition can fail in at least two ways: either because of another
long-term appetition with which it is in direct conﬂict or because the agent does
not have successful shorter-term appetitions for all the requisite means.
The latter, in turn, can happen either because the agent does not have appeti-
tions for those means at all or because something prevents the agent’s inclina-
tions toward the means from succeeding. So, for example, my long-term
appetition to learn Farsi by the end of the year might fail for any of the
following reasons: (a) because of my long-term appetition to write a book,
which I make my top priority, (b) because I lack appetitions for some of the
requisite means to learning Farsi (say, because I am unaware that they are
requisite means), or (c) because my appetitions for some of the requisite means
are outweighed by other appetitions.
The competition between appetitions, then, is an incredibly complicated
affair, not only because there are inﬁnitely many simultaneous appetitions,
but also because there are long-term appetitions whose success depends on
a series of other shorter-term appetitions. It may appear that the inevitable
consequence of this is utter chaos. It could seem almost miraculous that we ever
succeed in doing what we want to do because it requires that none of the
inﬁnitely many other appetitions get in the way. Can Leibniz explain why we so
often succeed in doing what we want to do? Clearly, what he needs is some
account of how certain appetitions reliably trump other appetitions; there must
be some sort of hierarchy that explains why certain types of appetitions, such as
my appetition to raise my arm,
38
usually succeed.
One part of the solution to this puzzle is that appetitions differ in strength.
In theTheodicy, for instance, Leibniz claims that when there are opposing
tendencies in a mind,“the strongest [la plus forte] wins”(T 337).
39
Similarly,
Leibniz writes to Clarke that“if the mind should prefer a weak inclination to
a strong one [l’inclination foible à la forte], it would act against itself”
36
For Leibniz, the interaction between physical forces may, of course, ultimately be phenomenal.
37
Bolton has recently argued this as well (2013: 189).
38
Strictly speaking, as we will see inSection 2.3, raising my arm ultimately consists in producing
perceptions of my arm going up–perceptions that are mirrored by all other monads. Yet, that
does not make it any less mysterious that my desire to raise my arm reliably results in such
a perception.
39
This does not always happen, he adds, because they might also“stop each other or some third
option will result from them”(ibid.). That makes sense: in cases where there are two contrary
appetitions of the same strength, for instance, they might impede each other or result in some
compromise state.
21Monadic States

(LC 5.15).
40
Sometimes, Leibniz even compares the conﬂict among appetitions
to weights in a balance. Like a balance, the mind will move toward the side on
which the appetitions are strongest or heaviest (see e.g. LC 5.3; NE 116;
Gr 480/SLT 96). This talk of strengthﬁts well with the force analogy: the
outcome of an interaction between forces depends not only on the directions of
the forces but also on their strength. InChapter 6, I will say more about the
reasons why some appetitions are stronger than others.
Relatedly, it is important to note that Leibniz acknowledges several types of
appetitions. One distinction that Leibniz draws is between conscious and uncon-
scious appetitions: he writes to Nicolas Remond that“our great perceptions and
our great appetites of which we are conscious, are composed ofinnumerable little
perceptions and little inclinations of which we cannot be conscious”(November 4,
1715, G 3:657/W 554). This passage is interesting because it tells us both that we
are conscious of some but not all appetitions and that unconscious appetitions can
compose conscious ones. In fact, as the passage indicates, this account is parallel to
the one Leibniz sometimes gives of perceptions (e.g. NE 134). Leibniz also
distinguishes conscious from unconscious appetitions–which he there calls
‘insensible’–in a reply to Bayle (G 4:550/WF 105).
41
It is independently plausible that there are conscious and unconscious
appetitions. We are clearly aware of some of our desires or inclinations but
not of all of our inﬁnitely many simultaneous inclinations. For instance, you
may be aware of your craving for coffee but unaware of the appetitions
responsible for your heart’s beating. It is because of these insensible appetitions
that we may be taken by surprise by some of the perceptions that arise in us: we
do not see them coming because we are not aware that our soul has an
inclination toward those perceptions. In some cases, these insensible appeti-
tions even lead to perceptions that are unwelcome or unpleasant and that we
would never pursue intentionally.
42
In addition to distinguishing conscious from unconscious appetitions,
Leibniz subdivides the conscious ones into rational and nonrational:
[T]here are insensible inclinations of which we are not aware. There are sensible ones:
we are acquainted with their existence and their objects, but have no sense of how they
40
See also LC 5.4, where he uses the term‘large’(grande) to describe the inclination that
succeeds.
41
Leibniz describes some appetitions as‘insensible’elsewhere as well, e.g. in a marginal note on
Temmik (in Mugnai1992: 163) and in T 310.
42
See Leibniz’s example of a man who unexpectedly gets stung by an insect and feels pain, which
Leibniz explains in terms of“insensible dispositions of the soul”(G 4:547/PT 237). This is an
interesting example because it illustrates that unconscious appetitions can give rise to conscious
perceptions. The reverse can plausibly happen as well: something that an agent consciously
perceives can presumably give rise to an unconscious tendency in her. For instance, while
watching an advertisement, an agent may develop an unconscious inclination to purchase the
product.
22 Monads and Their Actions

are constituted...Finally there are distinct inclinations which reason gives us: we have
a sense both of their strength and of their constitution [formation]. (NE 194)
According to this passage, there are three types of appetitions: (a) insensible
or unconscious appetitions, (b) sensible or merely conscious appetitions, and
(c) distinct or rational appetitions.
43
A few pages earlier Leibniz provides an even
moreﬁne-grained account. Instead of dividing conscious appetitions merely into
rational and sensible, he further subdivides sensible appetitions into those that are
accompanied by pleasure or suffering and those that are not (NE 192).
2.3 Actions
We have already explored several aspects of the fundamental nature of monads
and their changing modiﬁcations. Yet, one obvious question remains open:
what exactly are the actions of monads? Given that monads have only two basic
types of states–appetitions and perceptions–and given thatﬁnite monads do
not produce any changes outside of themselves, there are two straightforward
candidates. Monadic actions could be either appetitions, that is, the tendencies
to transition to new perceptual states, or they could be (the transitions among)
perceptual states.
In my view, we should endorse the second option: a monad’s perceptions–
or perhaps, more precisely, a monad’s giving rise to perceptions–are its
actions. This may initially sound odd, but on reﬂection, it is the obvious
choice. After all, Leibnizian perceptions are not passive states; a monad does
not receive its perceptions passively but rather produces them actively.
This must be the case becauseﬁnite monads do not causally interact. Your
action of raising your arm, for instance, consists merely–in metaphysical
strictness–in your producing a series of perceptual states that represent your
arm going up. Moreover, Leibniz sometimes describes appetitions as the
endeavors for acting (e.g. G 7:330/SLT 66). Because appetitions tend toward
the production of new perceptions, this production must be the action. This
also means that appetitions are not good candidates for actions; they are
merely tendencies for acting in a particular way. A monad’s actions consist,
most plausibly, in its production of perceptual states.
44
This suggestionﬁnds
43
See Phemister, who also discusses these three types (2005: 247f.). The three Leibnizian types of
appetition are similar to Aquinas’s three types (see e.g. SCG 2.47.2; ST I q59 a1 corp.).
44
McRae puts forward a slightly different explanation, which is compatible with mine (1976:
63f.). Sukjae Lee provides yet another explanation. He thinks that Leibniz calls perceptions
‘actions’because“a perception is a real cause of a subsequent state of the substance”(2004:
227). I am unconvinced by Lee’s explanation, and not only because I do not think that one
perception is the active cause of another (seeSection 4.1). What makes something an action of
mine is not that it causes my subsequent states but rather that it has a special, immediate
relationship to me. Leibniz appears to agree (see NE 210).
23Monadic States

support in the draft of a letter to Des Bosses, in which Leibniz writes that
“the operation proper to the soul is perception”(April 30, 1709, LDB 129),
as well as in theNew Essays, in which he claims that“thoughts are actions”
(NE 86).
An important caveat is that Leibniz sometimes reserves the term‘action’for
transitions to more perfect, or more distinct, perceptions and opposes it to
‘passion,’or to transitions to less perfect, or more confused, perceptions. One
such passage is from the“Monadology”:“The creature is said toactexternally
insofar as it is perfect, andto be acted uponby another, insofar as it is
imperfect. Thus we attributeactionto a monad insofar as it has distinct
perceptions, andpassion, insofar as it has confused perceptions”(M 49;
similarly NE 210f.). This is, however, clearly a different sense of‘action,’
and not what Leibniz calls the“metaphysically rigorous sense”(NE 210). In the
rigorous sense, all changes in a monad’s perceptions are its actions.
InChapter 2, I will describe the distinction between these two senses of‘action’
with much more precision.
2.4 The Distinction between Appetitions and Perceptions
While I have so far discussed perceptions and appetitions separately, it is
important to note that there is an intimate relation between them. In fact, it is
somewhat controversial whether appetitions and perceptions are fundamen-
tally distinct. Some passages suggest that the two are separate modiﬁcations
of monads (e.g. PNG 2; letter to Bierling, August 12, 1711, G 7:501f.;
G 7:330/SLT 66; letter to Bernoulli, July 1, 1704, LDV 311), but other
passages make it sound as if they are ultimately one and the same thing.
In this section, I argue that appetitionsand perceptions are at least different
modes of monadic states and that the distinction between them is important to
Leibniz.
Some passages appear to describe monads not as having perceptions
and separate tendencies toward new perceptions but rather as having
perceptions that themselves tend toward other perceptions. Leibniz
writes, for instance, that“the soul...involves a compound tendency,
that is to say a multitude of present thoughts, each of which tends towards
a particular change, depending on what is involved in it”(G 4:562/WF
115). This passage seems to say that perceptions themselves, rather than
appetitions that are distinct from perceptions, are or contain the monad’s
tendencies to change its perceptions. Similarly, Leibniz writes to Samuel
Masson that because the objects of our perceptions are composite,“these
perceptions are called composite, as are their tendencies or appetites”
(G 6:627/AG 228). Here again, Leibniz appears to suggest that percep-
tions themselves have tendencies. On the basis of passages like these,
24 Monads and Their Actions

some interpreters argue that perceptions and appetitions are not funda-
mentally distinct.
45
There are at least three ways to deal with this apparent tension in Leibniz’s
description of appetitions. One is to discount passages in which Leibniz
appears to ascribe tendencies to perceptions and to take at face value passages
in which he describes them as separate states. A second option is to conclude
that appetitions and perceptions differ only conceptually: they are merely two
different ways of understanding the same thing.
46
A third possibility, which
I prefer to the second, is to argue that appetitions and perceptions are separate
modes of monadic states–separate modes of modes, if you will. This would
explain why Leibniz sometimes describes them as two different things and
sometimes as one thing. This third interpretation allows us to say that even
though the same monadic state represents and strives, the distinction between
the representation and the striving is more than merely conceptual.
47
We can understand the difference between the second and the third interpreta-
tion through an admittedly imperfect analogy with motion. The third interpreta-
tion views the distinction between appetitions and perceptions as analogous to
the distinction between the speed of an object’s motion and its direction: these are
two independent modes of the object’s motion. On the second interpretation, on
the other hand, the distinction between appetitions and perceptions is analogous
to the distinction between an object’s motion away from its origin and its motion
toward its terminus. It is simply the same motion conceived in two different
ways. The difference between these two interpretations is important because the
third one leaves room for the possibility that a monad might be inclined differ-
ently by a certain representation than it in fact is; the second interpretation rules
that out. That possibility is crucial for Leibniz’stheoryoffreedom,aswewillsee
inChapter 5.
48
For this reason, I prefer the third interpretation to the second one,
and have no objection to theﬁrst one either, since it too is compatible with
Leibniz’sviewsonfreedom.
There is further evidence that Leibniz does not want to treat perceptions and
appetitions as merely conceptually distinct. He writes to Wolff, for instance,
that“whatever one may understand generally in the soul can be reduced to two
things: the soul’s expression of the present state of external things, in
45
McRae, for instance, writes that they are merely“the same modiﬁcations viewed differently”
(1976: 60). Other interpreters who hold that appetitions and perceptions are not fundamentally
distinct include Whipple (2010b: 407n56), Clatterbaugh (1973: 9), and Bolton (2011: 145).
46
This appears to be McRae’s view (1976: 60).
47
We could call it a modal distinction. This might be what Rutherford has in mind (1995b: 138).
48
This becomes clear, e.g., in a letter to Jaquelot, G 3:468/WF 179; T 310. Additional evidence
occurs in T 34, where Leibniz entertains the possibility of an agent who can judge but lacks the
inclination to act accordingly. See Jorati (2014a: 759f.), where I argue that there is no meta-
physically necessary connection between particular representational contents and particular
tendencies toward new representations.
25Monadic States

accordance with its body; and the tendency to a new expression”(GLW 56).
If Leibniz thought that appetitions and perceptions were the same thing viewed
differently, it would be misleading to also claim that they are“two things.”
Perhaps more importantly, Leibniz sometimes says that appetition and percep-
tion in created substances correspond to will and intellect in God (e.g. M 48),
which is helpful because Leibniz considers it crucial that God’s will and God’s
intellect are distinct in a rather robust sense (COE 21; T 149; M 46).
One potential problem for my interpretation is the following. As I argue in
Section 4.2, there are good reasons to think that, strictly speaking, instanta-
neous monadic perceptions are merely abstractions from a continuous series.
They do not ground that series–the series grounds them. The same might hold
for appetitions. Yet, I do not think that this undermines my claim about the
distinction between appetitions and perceptions. After all, when we abstract
two different instantaneous entities from a continuous series–a representation
and an inclination–it does not follow that these entities differ from each other
only conceptually. The following analogy from geometry might help: when
describing a curve, we can provide the coordinates for one point on the curve as
well as specify the curve’s slope at that point. Even if we view those two entities
as abstractions from the curve, as Leibniz appears to do, it does not follow that
the distinction between them is merely conceptual. Instead, the distinction
appears to be a modal distinction: passing through a particular point and
possessing a particular slope at that point are two different modes of the
curve. It is possible for a curve to pass through the same point at a different
slope, and vice versa.
3 Types of Monads
Each monad differs from any other monad–as it must, in accordance with
Leibniz’s Principle of the Identity of Indiscernibles. Yet, Leibniz holds that we
can group monads into three broad types: bare monads, nonrational souls, and
minds. Bare monads are the most common type of monad; they occur in plants
and in the small organisms that make up inanimate things, as well as the bodies
of animals and human beings. Nonrational souls, on the other hand, are the
central monads of subhuman animals. Finally, minds are rational souls and
include the souls of human beings and of angels. God is a mind as well but
differs from other minds in lacking a body. The distinction between these three
types of monads is important for future chapters because it has implications for
the differences between rational and nonrational actions. Thus, it is helpful to
examine the grounds of this tripartite distinction.
First of all, we should note that there is a signiﬁcant amount of continuity. All
three types of monads have perceptions, for instance–even the dullest of
monads. Yet, the least perfect monads have only comparatively confused
26 Monads and Their Actions

perceptions and lack memory. They resemble a human mind that is sleeping
dreamlessly (M 20; PNG 4) or in a stupor (M 24; G 7:330/SLT 66). Animal
souls are capable of more distinct perceptions and sensation, which is simply
“perception accompanied bymemory”or by memory and attention (PNG 4;
similarly M 20; letter to Wagner, June 4, 1710, G 7:529; G 7:330/SLT 65).
Finally, minds possess reason and their perceptions can amount to thought,
which is perception with reason or with reﬂection (PNG 4f.; M 29; G 7:331/
SLT 66; NE 173). Of course, not all perceptions of minds are thoughts, just as
not all perceptions of animal souls are sensations. Leibniz thinks that most of
the perceptions inﬁnite minds are exactly like the perceptions in animal souls;
in fact, many of them are like the perceptions of bare monads. Only a small
number of aﬁnite mind’sinﬁnitely many simultaneous perceptions can be
rational, and at certain times–for instance, while asleep–none of these
perceptions are rational. Thus, the perceptual differences between the three
kinds of monads can be summarized as follows: bare monads have only low-
level perceptions, animal souls additionally possess sensation and memory, and
minds additionally possess reason and reﬂection.
The three types of monads differ not only with respect to their perceptions
but also with respect to their appetitions. In fact, there are good reasons to think
that the three types of appetitions described inSection 2.2correspond to the
three types of perceptions just mentioned. Even though Leibniz does not say so
explicitly, as far as I know, it seems clear that bare monads have only insensible
appetitions, that animal souls additionally have sensitive appetitions, and that
minds additionally have rational appetitions. After all, bare monads lack
sensation, and only minds possess the power of reasoning.
4 Causation in Monadic Actions
Theﬁnal question I would like to discuss in this chapter is how precisely monadic
actions are caused. This question is surprisingly difﬁcult to answer. Not only is it
controversial what exactly causes monadic actions; it is also far from obvious
which types of causation are involved in monadic activity. The present section
aims to show that actions have efﬁcient,ﬁnal, and formal causes, perhaps in
addition to something like occasional causes. Moreover, I will argue that the
monads themselves–rather than their modiﬁcations–are the efﬁcient and
formal causes of their actions. BecauseChapter 3examines the role thatﬁnal
causation plays in monadic actions, I will not say very much about it here.
4.1 Efﬁcient Causation
In a number of passages, Leibniz calls the monadic realm‘the kingdom ofﬁnal
causes’and the physical realm‘the kingdom of efﬁcient causes’(e.g. M 79;
27Causation in Monadic Actions

“Against Barbaric Physics,”G 7:344/AG 319; G 6:542/L 588; GM 6:243/
AG 126). On the face of it, this suggests that there are no efﬁcient causes in
the monadic realm and noﬁnal causes in the physical realm. In fact, if only
monads are ultimately real, it suggests that efﬁcient causation is merely
phenomenal and that all real causation isﬁnal causation. Yet, that conclusion
is problematic for a number of reasons. For instance, there are passages in
which Leibniz seems to state thatﬁnal causes can explain some physical
events (e.g.“On Body and Force,”G 4:398/AG 254), as well as passages in
which he says that there is efﬁcient (or productive) causation inﬁnite
monads (e.g. letter to l’Hôpital, July 12, 1695, A 3.6.451/WF 56f.). There
is no need to discuss the role ofﬁnal causation in Leibniz’s natural philoso-
phy here;
49
we can instead focus on the role of efﬁcient causes in monadic
actions. InChapter 3, I will then explore the role ofﬁnal causation in
monadic change.
There are many good reasons for thinking that there must be efﬁcient
causation, in addition toﬁnal causation, in created monads. First of all,ﬁnal
causation, as traditionally understood, goes hand in hand with efﬁcient causa-
tion: in order for a change to occur, there must be not only a purpose or end but
also an efﬁcient cause that acts for the sake of this end or produces something in
order to achieve the end. An end or purpose on its own, without an efﬁcient
cause, does not lead to a change. The way Leibniz describes efﬁcient causation
suggests that he agrees: he equates the efﬁcient cause with that which produces,
or with the productive cause (NE 228). Moreover, in his“Table of Deﬁnitions”
from the early 1700s, he deﬁnes the efﬁcient cause as“the active cause”
(C 472); in another table of deﬁnitions from the early 1670s, he deﬁnes it as
“a cause through action”(A 6.2.490). Accordingly, an efﬁcient cause in the
most general sense seems to be that which produces some change through an
action.
50
It is plausible, then, that Leibniz agrees with mainstream medieval
Aristotelians that without an efﬁcient cause no change would be produced.
He could, of course, locate this efﬁcient causality entirely in God. This is what
Sukjae Lee argues: Leibniz’s God is the sole productive cause of monadic
changes (2004). Yet, this strikes me–along with many other interpreters of
Leibniz–as too close to occasionalism. It also appears to make created
substances more passive than Leibniz often insists they are (see McDonough
2007: 32). Formal andﬁnal causation–which Lee takes to be the only types of
causation of whichﬁnite substances are capable–do not seem to be types of
49
For helpful discussions, see McDonough (2008,2011: 197f.), Bennett (2005), Rutherford
(2005: 166f.), and Hirschmann (1988).
50
There are interesting parallels here with Suárez’sdeﬁnition of the efﬁcient cause as“that
whence the effect exists by means of an action; that is,...a principle from which the effect
ﬂows forth, or on which it depends, through an action”(MD 17.1.6/OEC 10).
28 Monads and Their Actions

genuine activity.
51
Hence, there must be efﬁcient causation in the realm ofﬁnite
monads.
There is also more direct textual evidence that changes in created monads
have created efﬁcient causes. For instance, Leibniz writes to Guillaume
François de l’Hôpital in 1695 that“every substance...produces for itself,
internally, in order, everything that will ever happen to it”(A 3.6.451/WF 56f.).
Since he equates the productive with the efﬁcient cause (NE 228), this is strong
evidence that there is efﬁcient causation in all monads. Similarly, Leibniz tells
Isaac Jaquelot,“I maintain that God gave the soul the power of producing its
own thoughts”(February 9, 1704, G 3:464/WF 175). Furthermore, in a 1715
letter to Nicolas Remond, Leibnizﬁrst stresses–paceoccasionalists–that
ﬁnite substances must be active, then claims that secondary (that is, created)
causes are efﬁcacious, andﬁnally states that“each substance or monad...
follows its own laws in producing its actions”(November 4, 1715, G 3:657).
52
Andﬁnally, in“On Nature Itself,”Leibniz states that God has placed“a certain
efﬁcacy [quandam efﬁcaciam]”in created substances (ONI 6; similarly ONI
13). In fact, Leibniz’s main goal in that essay is refuting the occasionalist
doctrine that creatures do not produce anything (see e.g. ONI 10). These are
compelling reasons to believe that there is efﬁcient causation in created
monads.
Yet, acknowledging that there must be something in the realm ofﬁnite
monads that efﬁciently causes monadic states does not yet tell us where exactly
to locate this efﬁcient cause. One thing is clear, as already mentioned: created
monads do not interact causally, according to Leibniz. Instead, all nonmiracu-
lous changes in each created monad originate within it. Hence, theﬁnite cause
of changes in a monad cannot be anything external to it. Something in that
monad must cause those changes. But what exactly? Most interpreters assume
that substances underlie, in some sense, the states or changes that occur in
them.
53
On that kind of interpretation, there are at least two ways to understand
Leibniz’s claim that all changes arise in a created monad spontaneously. First, it
could mean that any state of a created substance is efﬁciently caused by a prior
state of the same substance. Alternatively, it could mean that the substance
itself efﬁciently causes all of its states.
54
Each of these alternatives has
51
As seen, Leibniz deﬁnes the efﬁcient cause as the active cause. The implication seems to be that
other types of causes–including formal andﬁnal causes–are not active.
52
There are other passages in which Leibniz talks ofﬁnite substances producing–that is,
efﬁciently causing–their states. See, for instance, a letter to de Volder, June 30, 1704, LDV
309; T 298;“New System,”G 4:485/AG 144.
53
There are notable exceptions. See especially John Whipple, who challenges this common
assumption (2010b: 407).
54
Martin Lin contends that the distinction between causation by the monad and causation by prior
states might ultimately be a distinction without a difference. After all, saying that a perception
causes another perception arguably means that the substance itself, insofar as it has a certain
29Causation in Monadic Actions

adherents. I will brieﬂy discuss theﬁrst of these readings before arguing for
the second one.
If all states of aﬁnite monad are efﬁciently caused by prior states of the same
monad, monadic states form causal chains, and efﬁcient causation consists in
state (or perhaps event) causation. Because Leibniz acknowledges two basic
types of monadic states, there are two possibilities: either prior perceptions or
prior appetitions are the efﬁcient causes of changes in a monad.
55
Following
Bobro and Clatterbaugh, we can call the former possibility the“efﬁcacious
perception view”(1996: 408f.), and we can call the latter possibility, which
Bobro and Clatterbaugh do not consider, the‘efﬁcacious appetition view.’ Each
of these two possible interpretations has supporters.
56
There is some textual evidence in favor of the efﬁcacious perception view,
which is endorsed explicitly by Nicholas Jolley (1998: 605). Leibniz says in his
“Animadversions”against Georg Stahl, for instance, that“the representation of
the end in a soul is the efﬁcient cause of the representation of the means [to this
end] in the same [soul]”(Dut 2.2.134/LSC 23). Here, Leibniz explicitly
describes one representation in the soul as the efﬁcient cause of another
representation. A similar statement occurs in Leibniz’s reply to Pierre Bayle’s
question of why a dog would transition to a painful state when beaten:
“The representation of the present state of the universe in the dog’s soul
produces in it the representation of the subsequent state of the same universe”
(G 4:532/WF 78). Here again, Leibniz suggests that earlier representations–
that is, perceptions–produce later perceptions.
57
Several other interpreters endorse what I call‘the efﬁcacious appetition
view,’ for instance, Donald Rutherford (2005: 166,2013: 166f.), Laurence
Carlin (2006: 231), and Martha Bolton (2013: 178). The main reasons in favor
of the efﬁcacious appetition view appear to be that Leibniz often describes
changes in a monad as the consequences of prior states, as well as the fact that
perception, causes itself insofar as it has another perception (2014: 181). There is deﬁnitely
some truth in this: modiﬁcations, plausibly, are simply the substance modiﬁed in a particular
way (see Lin2014: 172). Yet, as we will see below, the continuity of perceptual states makes it
problematic to think of perceptions or appetitions as the causes of other states, even if we
understand this in Lin’s way.
55
Of course, one could also claim that perceptions and appetitions together produce new states in
a substance. Yet, I am not aware of any commentators who explicitly argue this.
56
In addition, there are some Leibniz scholars who claim that every state of aﬁnite monad is
efﬁciently caused by a prior state of the same monad but who do not specify whether this
efﬁcient cause is a prior perception or a prior appetition (e.g. Sleigh1990b: 162, Kulstad
1993: 96).
57
There are also numerous passages in which Leibniz describes the states of created monads as
“consequences”or“results”of earlier states (e.g. M 22; letter to Foucher, 1686, G 1:382/WF 52;
undated letter to Jaquelot, G 3:468/WF 179; remarks on Lamy, G 4:579/WF 154). Yet, most of
these passages talk only of states generally, not of perceptions in particular, and more impor-
tantly, they do not employ explicitly causal language (see Bobro and Clatterbaugh1996: 415).
Hence, they are not extremely strong evidence for the efﬁcacious perception view.
30 Monads and Their Actions

appetitions seem like better candidates than perceptions for something that is
causally active. After all, Leibniz appears to view appetitions as forces or
tendencies.
Other Leibniz scholars–myself included–reject both the efﬁcacious percep-
tion and the efﬁcacious appetition view and argue instead that the substance itself
must be the efﬁcient cause of its states. On this interpretation, which Bobro and
Clatterbaugh call the‘monadic agency view,’monadic states do not form causal
chains: neither appetitions nor perceptions efﬁciently cause anything, and their
efﬁcient cause is always the monad whose states they are.
58
This interpretation,
then, views monadic efﬁcient causation as agent causation, or substance causa-
tion. One reason to adopt the monadic agency view is that Leibniz sometimes
claims that only substances can be causally active. In“On Nature Itself,”for
instance, he says,“everything that acts is an individual substance”(ONI 9), and
in theNew Essayshe notes,“[f]aculties or qualities do not act; rather, substances
act through faculties”(NE 174). Another reason is that individual, instantaneous
monadic states may not possess enough reality to be efﬁcient causes. As we will
see in thenext subsection, they may be mere abstractions from the series of
modiﬁcations, which is prior to them.
There is also evidence that when Leibniz talks of the states of substances as
causally active, he is talking loosely and at bottom holds that only the substances
themselves can be efﬁ cient causes. He writes to Samuel Clarke, for instance, that
“properly speaking, motives do not act on the mind as weights do on a balance, but
it is rather the mind that acts by virtue of the motives, which are its dispositions to
act”(LC 5.15). According to this passage, it is always the mind that acts, and
appetitions are merely its dispositions or motives for acting. Along similar lines,
Leibniz says that“[w]hen we say that an intelligent substance is moved by the
goodness of its object...[the object’ s] representation acts in the substance, or
rather, the substance acts on itself, insofar as it is disposed and inﬂuenced by this
representation”(COE 21). The expression‘or rather’suggests that describing the
representation as acting in the substance is correct only loosely speaking. What is
actually, or strictly speaking, acting is the substance itself, although the representa-
tion does inﬂuence it or dispose it to act. I take these passages to be convincing
evidence that, strictly speaking, monads themselves–rather than prior states–are
the efﬁcient causes of their states. While perceptions doﬁgure into the explanation,
they are not properly speaking productive causes. Instead, the monad itself acts,
inﬂuenced in some nonproductive way by its perceptions.
The overall evidence, then, points not only to the presence of efﬁcient
causation in the realm ofﬁnite monads but also to the identiﬁcation of all
monadic efﬁcient causation with agent causation. This will be signiﬁcant in
58
Bobro and Clatterbaugh argue for this interpretation at length (1996: 416). See also Bobro
(2008: 329) and Schmid (2011: 326f. and 340f.).
31Causation in Monadic Actions

several future chapters, particularly inChapter 5, where I argue that Leibniz’s
adherence to agent causation makes his theory of freedom particularly power-
ful and intriguing.
4.2 Occasional, Formal, and Final Causation
So far I have argued that there is efﬁcient, or productive, causation in the
monadic realm and that monads themselves are the efﬁcient causes of their
states, though they are inﬂuenced by prior perceptions. Of course, this is
extremely vague; it does not tell us the exact nature of this inﬂuence from
prior perceptions. If it is not efﬁcient causation, as I have argued, what is it?
Leibniz is not very forthcoming about this in any text I have encountered; he
often describes one perception as a consequence or result of a previous percep-
tion (e.g. DM 14; letter to Foucher 1686, G 1:382/WF 52; letter to Jaquelot,
G 3:468/WF 179; remarks on a letter to Arnauld, G 2:47),
59
or says things like
“[t]he soul is stimulated [excitée] to its next thoughts by its internal object, that
is to say, by its preceding thoughts”(letter to Jaquelot, February 9, 1704,
G 3:464/WF 176). In the present subsection, I consider the most appealing
ways to understand this inﬂuence.
One promising proposal is that perceptions are occasional causes for further
perceptions. They do not themselves produce any changes, but they are the
occasions on which the substance produces new states (see Schmid2011: 343).
This interpretation can be seen as a way of spelling out Leibniz’s vague claim
that substances are“stimulated”by previous perceptions. The proposal is
attractive despite the fact that Leibniz vehemently objects to occasionalism,
because he is not hostile toward all uses of occasional causation. For instance,
in a note written around 1689, he describes the inﬂuence of oneﬁnite substance
on another as occasional causation (A 6.4.1640f./MP 81n.1). He also includes
deﬁnitions of‘occasional cause’in at least two of his discussions of
causation.
60
What Leibniz is opposing, then, is arguably not occasional causa-
tion generally but merely the doctrine that God is the sole efﬁcient cause in the
universe. One problem with this interpretation, however, is that Leibniz states
in a passage from the late 1670s that occasional causation occurs only in
voluntary agents.
61
Similarly, in a mature text, Leibniz deﬁnes occasional
causes as being“ﬁttingto usfor acting”(C 472; emphasis added). It is not at
59
See Bobro and Clatterbaugh (1996: 415), Bobro (2008: 326), and Lee (2004: 225f.) for
a discussion of what Leibniz might mean by‘consequence’or‘result.’They all argue that
these terms are unlikely to refer to efﬁcient causation.
60
See Leibniz’s“Table of Deﬁnitions:”“occasionis a state of affairs,ﬁtting to us for acting,
presented without our effort”(C 472). See also“Deﬁnitions”(1679):“An occasion is the existence
of causal conditions external to the agent under which the agent is ready to act”(A 6.4.310).
61
He says, to be precise, that“an occasion appears to have place only in voluntary actions”
(A 6.4.310).
32 Monads and Their Actions

all clear, then, whether Leibniz thinks of the inﬂuence of perceptions on
actions, even in nonrational agents, as occasional causation.
Another candidate for describing the inﬂuence of perceptions might be
formal causation: since Leibniz, as seen, believes that the present state of
a substance speciﬁes all future states, one might suspect that a substance’s
present perceptions are the formal causes of its future perceptions. Formal
causes, on this understanding, are the fundamental explanations for the speciﬁc
properties of the effect; the formal cause of a perceptual transition explains why
the new perception has the form that it does. There is even some textual
evidence that Leibniz is happy to acknowledge formal causation in the monadic
realm: inCausa Dei, he says that there is a harmony“of formal causes or souls
with material causes or bodies”(CD 46). Yet, it is doubtful that a perceptual
state could be the formal cause of a subsequent perceptual state. Strictly
speaking, after all, perceptual states do not by themselves specify or explain
what the subsequent perceptual states are going to be. Instead, current percep-
tual states specify subsequent states only in combination with the substance’s
nature or dispositions.
62
In fact, as already seen, monadic natures by them-
selves specify all of the monad’s states. Presumably, that is why in the passage
fromCausa Dei, Leibniz identiﬁes formal causes with souls. That strikes me as
much more plausible: the substance itself–or, what comes down to the same
thing, its nature or substantial form–is the formal cause of its actions.
63
Likewise, one perceptual state cannot be theﬁnal cause of a subsequent
perceptual state.
64
Final causation, after all, is the explanation of a change in
terms of an end at which the agent aims, or toward which the agent is directed. Yet,
my current perception is clearly not an end at which I aim in producing
a subsequent perception. Once I attain a certain end, this end can no longer explain
further changes since nothing can move me any closer to this end. Theﬁnal cause
is something toward which, rather than away from which, the agent moves. Even
in cases where the agent perceives the end of a perceptual transition, it seems
mistaken to say that this perception is theﬁnal cause of the subsequent state.
Instead, the end itself–that is, the object of this perception–is plausibly theﬁnal
cause.
65
Moreover, Leibniz does not appear to hold that monads perceive the ends
of all of their perceptual transitions, at least not in the requisite way.
66
62
I argue this in Jorati (2014a: 759f.).
63
Here I agree with Lee, who argues that created substances are the formal causes of their future
states because they fully specify and determine these future states (2006: 447).
64
Bobro suggests something along those lines, however (2013: section 8).
65
This is the traditional understanding ofﬁnal causation; see e.g. Des Chene (1996: 194) and
Pasnau (2001: 303). Yet, admittedly, there are some medieval philosophers who think that the
perception of the end is theﬁnal cause.
66
True, Leibniz does say that a substance’s present state contains marks of all of its future states.
Yet, as seen, he most plausibly means that the present state contains the explanation for, or
inclination toward, future states. That does not imply that the agent alreadyperceivesthese
33Causation in Monadic Actions

What, then, is the nature of the inﬂuence of prior perceptual states on later
perceptual states? Among the options considered–that is, efﬁcient, occasional,
formal, andﬁnal causation–the most plausible one is occasional causation.
Despite evidence that Leibniz wants to restrict occasional causation to volun-
tary agents, one could argue that he should be happy to acknowledge occasional
causation in a looser sense that characterizes the nonproductive inﬂuence of
any creature’s prior perceptual states on its future states. Yet, I am inclined to go
a different way.
67
In fact, I suspect that the question itself may turn out to be
somewhat wrongheaded.
Recall that Leibniz, as seen earlier, often describesﬁnite substances in
terms of primitive and derivative forces. Talking about perceptions and
appetitionsissupposedtobeadifferentwayofcharacterizingthisfunda-
mental metaphysical reality. Moreover, as already seen, it is strictly speaking
illegitimate to describe monadic activity as the transition from one perceptual
state to the next, even though Leibniz himself at times talks like this.
68
After
all, Leibniz claims that perceptual transitions are continuous (e.g. M 10).
69
He
also categorically rejects the notion that a continuum can be composed of
unextended parts, such as instantaneous entities in the case of temporally
extended continua or points in the case of spatially extended continua (e.g.
note on Foucher’s objection, G 4:491/AG 146; NE 152). Hence, Leibniz
cannot hold that a monad’s series of perceptions is composed of instantaneous
perceptual states.
70
Nor can such a series be composed of temporally
extended static perceptual states, because perceptions are supposed to change
constantly.
What, then, is the status of individual perceptions? I propose that the right
way to think about individual perceptual states is as modalities abstracted from
future states now, at least not in a way that could serve as the fundamental explanation for the
transition. Even if being inclined toward a future state is sufﬁcient for representing that state in
some sense, the inclination would be the ground of that representation. Hence, such
a representation cannot at the same time ground the inclination by being the end at which the
inclination aims. That would be circular. SeeChapter 3for a discussion of a similar circularity;
but see Schmid, who endorses the kind of view I am criticizing in (2011: 350) but seems to have
changed his views since (2016).
67
One problem is that the occasional causation proposal is not an entirely satisfactory explanation
of the precise nature of the causal relation. The occasional causation postulated by occasional-
ists is intelligible:xis the occasional cause ofyjust in case God brings aboutybecause of his
knowledge ofx. But Leibniz clearly does not want the causation withinﬁnite monads to be
mediated by God in this way. What, then, does it mean to say that one monadic state is the
occasional cause of another? That ultimately sounds like a mere placeholder for a nonproductive
causal relation that has yet to be speciﬁed.
68
Leibniz uses that locution, e.g., in M 22; two letters to Jaquelot (G 3:464/WF 176 and G 3:468/
WF 179);“Animadversions,”Dut 2.2.134/LSC 23; G 1:382; G 4:579/WF 154; G 4:533/
WF 78.
69
Richard Arthur provides a very helpful discussion of the continuity of monadic states (2001:
lxxxviff.).
70
See Whipple (2010b), who discusses this problem in detail.
34 Monads and Their Actions

a continuous series of modiﬁcations of primitive force.
71
This makes percep-
tions analogous to points, which Leibniz views as mere modalities of lines (e.g.
note on Foucher’s objection, G 4:491/AG 146; T 384). If this is correct, the
perceptual series is not composed out of individual perceptual states but is
rather prior to them. The substance itself, or primitive force, produces and
explains this perceptual series as a whole.
On this picture, it is not strictly speaking accurate to describe earlier states as
giving genuine metaphysical explanations for later states. One modality of the
series does not genuinely explain or ground a later modality. Yet, because the
series of perceptions is perfectly lawful, it is possible to predict later states from
earlier states and the law of the series, which might be the reason why Leibniz
sometimes talks as if prior states explain later states. In accordance with the
present proposal, a monad’s perceptions are coherent and intelligible as a series
not because there are causal or explanatory relations between them but rather
because they spring from one uniﬁed source. By way of analogy, it is like the
coherence of a bird’s song, which is explained not by causal relations among
different notes but rather by the fact that the song consists in a continuous
stream of air that the bird produces and that is modiﬁed in a lawful fashion.
However, there is a potential problem with my proposal. Leibniz suggests in
a few places that whatever cannot be resolved into primary constituents, or
whatever has indeﬁnite parts, cannot be real (e.g. letter to de Volder, June 30,
1704, LDV 303; January 19, 1706, LDV 339). In a letter to Bartholomew Des
Bosses, Leibniz puts this rather bluntly:“In actual things, simples are prior to
aggregates; in ideal things, the whole is prior to the part”(July 31, 1709, LDB
141; see also a letter to de Volder, October 11, 1705, LDV 327). This might be
a problem: arguably, the perceptual series is not a merely ideal thing, which
suggests that it cannot be prior to individual perceptions. Yet, we can solve that
problem. Leibniz does hold that a body can only be real to the extent that it is
resolvable into simple, indivisible things (e.g. letter to de Volder, January 21,
1704, LDV 285f.; June 30, 1704, LDV 303), and he clearly holds the same
about substances (e.g. M 2; PNG 1). Nevertheless, I see no reason to apply this
to something that is neither a substance nor a body, such as a series of mental
states. Leibniz in fact states explicitly in at least one passage that“in actual
substantial things, the whole is a result...of a multitude of real unities”(note
on Foucher’s objection, G 4:491/AG 146). In another passage, he adds that“in
real things, namely bodies, the parts are not indeﬁnite”(letter to de Volder,
June 30, 1704, LDV 303). Insofar as perceptual series are neither“actual
substantial things”nor bodies, I do not see why they could not be prior to
71
Rutherford defends a very similar interpretation (2008: 277ff.). An analogous solution appears
to work for appetitions: as derivative forces, they are merely abstractions or modalities of the
continuous series of modiﬁcations of primitive force.
35Causation in Monadic Actions

instantaneous perceptual states. In other words, I do not see why perceptual
series would have to be composed of discrete parts in order to be real. After all,
a perceptual series is merely a complex modiﬁcation of primitive force, which
in turn is indivisible, uniﬁed, and real. Perceptual series do not need to derive
their reality from constituent parts.
72
5 Conclusion
Even though Leibniz is not always as explicit as one might hope, he identiﬁes
monads at the most fundamental level with primitive forces. The primitive
forces are unchanging but they ground the entire series of continuous changes
that each monad undergoes. The changing states of a monad, which Leibniz
views as modiﬁcations of the monad’s primitive force, are that monad’s
perceptions and appetitions. At any time during its existence, the monad
represents external things–in fact, it represents the entire universe–and
possesses inclinations toward new representations. Producing these represen-
tations constitutes acting. Furthermore, there are excellent reasons to under-
stand Leibniz as endorsing agent causation: monads produce, or efﬁciently
cause, all of their states. States or events themselves do not efﬁciently cause
anything.
73
In fact, individual states appear to be mere abstractions from the
continuous series of modiﬁcations.
Of course, this chapter has not answered all important questions about the
fundamental nature of monadic change. The sketch it provides does, however,
contain the essential building blocks of Leibniz’s philosophy of action. Hence,
we can now proceed to a more comprehensive examination of monadic agency.
Along the way, more details about the basic ontology of monadic change will
emerge. For instance,Chapter 3will acquaint us far more intimately with
Leibniz’s understanding ofﬁnal causation and its role in explaining monadic
change. First, however, we will take a closer look at the spontaneity of monadic
actions, that is, at the self-determination of Leibnizian substances.
72
Whipple proposes an alternative interpretation, on which it makes sense to talk of next and
previous perceptual states, even though monadic perceptions are not composed of instants. His
alternative solution is that individual perceptions are temporally extended intervals, whose
temporal boundaries are reﬂectively speciﬁed by the monad (2010b: 400ff.). Some other authors
discuss this problem as well (Arthur2001: lxxxviii, McGuire1976: 313, Rutherford2008:
279 n58).
73
Nevertheless, as we will see inChapter 3, states or events can beﬁnal causes of monadic change.
A monad may engage in a particular type of behavior for the sake of pleasure, for instance.
36 Monads and Their Actions

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Nassireddin had personal cause of complaint against Alkami,
who, by his censure, had occasioned the khalif’s throwing into the
Tigris the poem dedicated to him by the former; adding, that it was,
in every respect, badly written. It is probable, that Nassireddin was a
better astronomer than poet; but it is still more probable, that
Alkami was jealous of the credit which he might gain with the khalif.
The vizier would not have deemed it necessary to warn the viceroy
of Khorassan, Nassireddin Mohteshem, with whom the astronomer
was, against a mediocre or bad Kasside, who was a juggler, and
wished to insinuate himself into the favour of the khalif. Out of
respect for Alkami, the viceroy, on this warning, threw the
astronomer into prison, notwithstanding he had dedicated his great
work, Akhlaki Nassiri, to him. He escaped to Alamut, where, as vizier
of the last grand-master, he, meditating revenge against Alkami and
the Khalif Mostassem, laid the foundation of it in the ruin of the
Assassins.
Ibn Alkami, like Nassireddin, swore vengeance against the
khalif: he had to complain, not only of the neglect of some of the
grandees and favourites being unpunished by Mostassem, but also,
he feared for his own personal security, on account of some severe
measures against the Shiites, to which sect he himself belonged. He
entered, therefore, on the same path of treachery, in which
Nassireddin had already preceded him, and besieged the ear of
Hulaku, with complaints and invitations, which were readily
accepted. Nassireddin, Hulaku’s vizier, and Ibn Alkami, the khalif’s,
played mutually into each other’s hands. The contemporaneous fall
of two such powerful sovereignties, as that of the Assassins and of
the khalifat, caused by the jealousy and treachery of an astronomer
and a wit, is unique in history.
265
Ere we commence the detail of the fall of the khalif throne of
Bagdad, it will be proper to premise a few words, relating to the
foundation and splendour of this renowned city.
Bagdad, the city, valley, or house of peace, the citadel of the
holy, the seat of the khalifat, called also the oblique,
266
from the

oblique position of its gates, was founded, on the banks of the
Tigris, in the 148th year of the Hegira, by Abujafer Almansur, the
second khalif of the Abbas family. It stretches two miles along the
eastern banks of the river, in the form of a bow with an arrow on the
string, and is surrounded by a brick wall, whose circumference of
twelve thousand four hundred ells, is interrupted by four gates and
one hundred and sixty-three turrets. When Mansur resolved upon
building the city, he called his astronomers, at whose head was his
vizier, Nevbakht (i. e. new fortune), to determine a fortunate hour
for laying the foundations; and the latter chose a moment when the
sun stood in the sign Sagittarius, by which the new city was
promised flourishing civilization, numerous population, and long
endurance. At the same time he assured the khalif, that neither he,
nor any of his successors, would die within the walls of this capital;
and the confidence of the astronomer, in the truth of his prophecy, is
less surprising than its fulfilment by thirty-seven khalifs, the last of
whom, Mostassem, during whose reign Bagdad fell, did not die
within its walls, but at Samara, a place built below Bagdad, on the
banks of the Tigris, by Motassem, the eighth Abbaside khalif (called
the eighther from the coincidence of the number eight, in his
nativity) for his Mameluke guard.
267
As Bagdad, from the circumstance of no khalif having died
within its walls, merited, most peculiarly, the name of the House,
Valley, or City of Peace; so, also, on account of the great number of
holy men of Islam, who are buried within or without it, and whose
tombs are so many objects of the pilgrimages of the Moslimin, it
gained the title of Bulwark of the Holy. Here are the mausolea of the
greatest imams and the most pious sheikhs. Here reposes the Imam
Mussa Kasim, the seventh of the twelve imams, who, in direct
descent from Ali, claimed the right to the throne and the khalifat, on
account of their relationship to the prophet; also, the imams, Hanefi
and Hanbeli, the founders of two of the four orthodox sects of the
Sunna; the sheikhs, Juneid, Shobli, and Abdolkadir-Ghilani,
268
the
chiefs of the mystic sect of the sofis.

In the midst of the monuments of the imams and sheikhs, stand
those of the khalifs, and their spouses; of which that of Zobeide, the
wife of Harun al Rashid, has, by the strength of its construction,
survived the repeated captures and destructions of Bagdad, by the
Mongols, Persians, and Turks. Equally splendid specimens of
Saracenic architecture are the academies, colleges, and schools; two
of which have immortalized the names of their founders in the
history of Arabic literature. The academies, Nisamie and
Mostansarie, the former instituted in the first half of the fifth century
of the Hegira, by Nisam-ol-mulk, the great grand-vizier of
Melekshah, sultan of the Seljuks, the latter, built two centuries later,
by the Khalif Almostansar-billah, with four different pulpits for the
four orthodox sects of the Sunnites.
The most magnificent of all the palaces was that of the Khalif
Moktader-billah, called the “House of the Tree,”
269
and seated in a
wide extent of gardens. In the middle of the vestibule, near two
large basins of water, stood two trees of gold and silver, each having
eighteen branches, and a great number of smaller boughs. One of
these bore fruit and birds, whose variegated plumage was imitated
with different precious stones, and which gave forth melodious
sounds, by means of the motion of the branches, produced by a
mechanical contrivance. On the other tree were fifteen figures of
cavaliers, dressed in pearls and gold, with drawn swords, which, on
a signal being given, moved in concert. In this palace, the Khalif
Moktader gave audience to the ambassadors of the Greek emperor,
Theophilus,
270
and astonished them with the numbers of his army,
and the splendour of his court.
271
A hundred and sixty thousand
men stood in their ranks before the palace; the pages glittered in
golden girdles; seven thousand eunuchs, three thousand of whom
were white, the rest black, surrounded the entrance; and,
immediately at the gate, were seven hundred chamberlains. On the
Tigris floated gilded barks and gondolas, decorated with silken flags
and streamers. The walls of the palace were hung with thirty-eight
thousand carpets, twelve thousand five hundred of which were of

gold tissue; and twenty-two thousand pieces of rich stuff covered
the floors. A hundred lions, held by their keepers with golden chains,
roared in concert with the sound of fifes and drums, the clang of the
trumpets, and the thundering of the tamtam.
272
The entrance to the audience chamber was concealed by a
black silk curtain; and no one could pass the threshold, without
kissing the black stone of which it was formed, like the pilgrims at
Mecca.
273
Behind the black curtain, on a throne seven ells high, sat
the khalif, habited in the black mantle (borda) of the prophet, girded
with his sword, and holding his staff in his hand as a sceptre.
Ambassadors, and even princes, who received investiture, kissed the
ground in front of the throne, and approached, conducted by the
vizier and an interpreter, and were then honoured with a habit of
ceremony (khalaat), and presents. So Togrul-beg, the founder of the
Seljuks, on receiving investiture from the Khalif Kaim-Biemrillah, was
dressed in seven caftans, one over the other, and presented with
seven slaves, from the several different states forming the khalifat.
He received two turbans, two sabres, and two standards, in token of
being invested with the sovereignty of the east and the west.
274
These proceedings of the khalif’s court were copied by that of
Byzantium; and traces of them have been preserved to the present
day, in the ceremonials of the great kingdoms both of the east and
the west. Theophilus, whose love of splendour rivalled that of the
khalif, built a palace in Constantinople, the exact counterpart of the
“House of the Tree,” even to the golden tree,
275
and the artificial
singing birds on it; which was no less an object of admiration to the
envoys of the European courts, than the original at Bagdad had been
to the Greeks. The etiquette of the khalif’s court, which was
repeated at Byzantium, still subsists at the Constantinopolitan
courts, as Luitprand describes it. When the khalif rode out, he was
saluted with the shouting a long formula of benediction;
276
in the
same manner was the Greek emperor, with the cry of “Many years”
(πολυχρονιζειν)! and so is the Ottoman sultan, at this day, with the
usual “Tehok-yasha” (may he live long)! The two turbans, which are

placed before him when he enters the mosque, signify his
sovereignty over Asia and Europe; the prophet’s sword and mantle
are preserved in the treasury of the seraglio. The borda, that is, the
Arabian prince’s mantle of black, afterwards embroidered with gold,
is still worn by the princes of Lebanon, and the emirs of the desert;
its colours, black and gold, were adopted in the livery of the Roman
emperor.
The military force no longer bore any proportion to the
splendour and magnificence with which the sinking throne of the
khalifat was still enriched, as in the glorious days of Moktader. The
army, indeed, still consisted of sixty thousand cavalry, under the
command of Suleimanshah; but even this number was diminished by
Ibn Alkami’s treachery. The latter proposed the curtailing the forces,
and dismissing the men, in order to save their pay and preserve the
treasure; and, in spite of the opposite warning of the four greatest
officers of state, the commander-in-chief, Suleimanshah, the first
and second ink-holders, or secretaries of state, and the chief cup-
bearer, he lulled the khalif into security from the danger of the
Mongols, so that he carelessly stretched himself on the pillow of
ease and effeminacy.
While he was occupied with the conquest of Kuhistan, and the
extirpation of the Assassins, Hulaku received a letter from Ibn
Alkami, who promised to deliver into his hands, the bulwarks and
treasure of the khalif city; and magnifying the charms of the
capture, he studiously depreciated the dangers of the attempt, till
they disappeared. The khan, however, did not blindly trust the
traitor’s promises; the former unsuccessful attempts upon Bagdad
were too fresh in his memory. Churmaghun, the general of Jenghis
Khan, had, during the reign of the Khalif Nassir-ledinillah, twice
advanced against Bagdad, with an army of a hundred and twenty-
four thousand men; and twice was he beaten back, with the loss of
the greater part of his forces. Hulaku had recourse to Nassireddin,
his vizier, and, through him, to the stars; in which the latter naturally
read the overthrow of the khalifat, so long determined upon by his
revengeful spirit. Ibn Alkami’s divining-rod struck on the deeply-

concealed vein of Nassireddin’s inveterate rancour, and treachery
responded to revenge.
In accordance with Nassireddin’s counsels, Hulaku, as soon as
he reached Hamadan, sent the before-mentioned embassy to the
khalif, whom he requested to send to meet him, one of the two
secretaries of state, the chief cup-bearer, or the commander of the
army, with whose opposition to his views he was fully acquainted.
The khalif sent the learned orator, Ibn-al-jusi, who poured the oil of
his eloquence into the fire of wrath, and returned, without
performing his task. Hulaku, still more enraged, commanded the
Emir Sogranjan to advance to Erdebil, and cross the Tigris, and then
to form a junction with the troops of the Emir Boyanje, on the
western side of Bagdad. In the meanwhile, he himself broke up his
head-quarters at Hamadan. On the news of the advance of the
Mongol vanguard reaching Bagdad, the khalif despatched Fetheddin,
one of his oldest and most experienced commanders, with the
secretary of state, Mujeheddin, one of his young favourites, and a
thousand cavalry, armed with lances, who, in the first action, beat
the Mongols, and forced them to retreat.
Fetheddin’s grey-headed experience wished to encamp; but
Mujeheddin’s youthful arrogance incited him so long with insulting
charges of cowardice and treachery, that he, at last, gave orders to
pursue the enemy. They overtook them at the western branch of the
Tigris, called Dojail, or Little Tigris. Fetheddin mounted a common
horse, on whose fore and hind legs he had iron chains fastened, and
so remained in one spot, to show to all that he was determined not
to desert his post in the field, and that he would either conquer or
die there. Night, and the fatigue of both armies, put an end to the
combat, and dropping their arms, they sank into those of sleep; but
while the khalif’s army were buried in slumber, the Mongols cut
through some dykes, and the water broke impetuously on the
opposing forces. The darkness of the rushing waters, and that of the
night, was made still darker, by the despair of the army. Then they
saw the words of the Koran fulfilled: “Darkness on darkness;
everywhere darkness;” and, like Pharoah’s host, they were buried in

the waves. The brave old Fetheddin, whose prudence would have
averted the danger, perished; and the rash youth, Mujeheddin,
whose arrogance had produced it, escaped with two or three
companions, who brought the news of the catastrophe to Bagdad.
So blind was the khalif’s partiality to his favourite, so slight his
sorrow for the loss of his army, that on receiving the intelligence, he
merely exclaimed, three times, thankfully: “God be praised for the
preservation of Mujeheddin!” And when the enemy had already
advanced as far as Jebel-Hamr (the red mountain), three days’
march from Bagdad, and he was informed of their approach, he only
replied: “How can they pass that mountain?” All representations to
the contrary were either unheard or ineffectual.
In the meanwhile, the main body of the Mongols had pushed
forward on the road of Yakuba, and was encamped on the eastern
bank of the Tigris. Then only did the khalif command the gates of
Bagdad to be shut, the fortifications to be garrisoned, and
preparations to be made for defence. The two secretaries and
Suleimanshah once more led the élite of the army, against the
enemy. The battle lasted two days, with various fortune, but with
equal loss: on the third, Hulaku prohibited the Mongols from
renewing the attack, and resolved to enclose the city in a blockade.
On all the heights without the city, and on all the towers and palaces
which commanded it, were placed projectile engines, throwing
masses of rock and flaming naphtha, which breached the walls, and
set the buildings on fire.
At this period, the three presidents of the sherifs, or
descendants of Ali, who resided at Helle, on the banks of the
Euphrates, not far from the ruins of Babylon, sent a letter to Hulaku,
in which they offered their submission, and added bitter complaints
of the wrongs which they had suffered from the khalif. They
informed him, that according to a tradition preserved by their
glorious ancestor, the Lion of God, the sage of the faith, the son-in-
law of the prophet Ali, the son of Abu-taleb, the period of the fall of
the family of Abbas, and the conquest of Bagdad, was arrived.
Hulaku, equally pleased with the homage of the descendants of the

prophet and with the prophecy, answered them graciously, and
commanded his general, Emir Alaeddin, to occupy the district of
Helle, and to protect the inhabitants from violence. Thus their hatred
against the family of Abbas secured them against the rage of the
Mongols.
After the siege had lasted forty days, the khalif convoked a
general assembly of all the grandees of the realm, in which Ibn
Alkami spoke at great length of the innumerable host of the
Mongols, and the impossibility of long resisting them; he therefore,
recommended a treaty with Hulaku, who was more desirous of the
treasures than the dominions of the khalif; he advised a mutual
alliance between a daughter of Hulaku and a son of the khalif, and
between a daughter of the latter and a son of the former, that the
ties of peace and friendship might be drawn the closer. For this
purpose, the khalif should go in person to the khan’s camp, and thus
the blood of thousands would be spared, the city preserved from
utter destruction, and the khalifat fortified against every enemy by
the acquisition of so powerful an ally.
The fear and pusillanimity of the khalif caused him to listen to
Alkami’s faithless advice. He sent him, in the first place, into the
camp to negotiate peace, under the same conditions as had been
offered to him from Hamadan; he returned with the answer,
probably suggested by himself, that “What was admissible at
Hamadan, is no longer so before the gates of Bagdad.” Then, only
one of the great dignities of the realm was demanded; now all four
were, namely: the commander of the army, Suleimanshah, the two
ink-holders or secretaries of state, and the chief cup-bearer. The
siege continued six days longer with renewed vehemence; on the
seventh, Hulaku caused six letters of immunity to be prepared, in
which it was stated that the kadis and the seids, the sheikhs and
imams who had not borne arms should be secure of their lives and
property; these letters were attached to arrows, and shot into the
city on six sides. One of the two secretaries, who despaired of the
safety of the city, and was more anxious for his own, embarked on
the Tigris to seek it in flight; as however, he came abreast of Kariet-

ol-akab, he was stopped by a body of the Mongol troops, posted
there for the purpose of cutting off the communication between
Medain and Basra. Three of his vessels fell a prey to the flaming
naphtha, and he was himself compelled to return. The khalif, who
had already renounced all hope, now sent Fakhreddin Damaghani,
and Ibn Derwish, with presents to Hulaku, and to treat with him
concerning the conditions of peace. These two, however, returning
without success, he despatched, on the following day, his son
Abulfase Abdorrahman, with very considerable presents, and, on the
third, his brother Abulfasl Abubekr, with the noblest and greatest
personages in the state. These embassies were as fruitless as the
first, and the vizier, who was sent into the camp along with Ibn-al-
jusi, again brought back the surrender of Suleimanshah and the
secretaries, as the indisputable condition of the khalif’s free exit.
Suleimanshah, and one of the secretaries, after being assured
of a safe conduct, went to Hulaku, who sent them back to the city,
commanding them to bring with them their families and whole
household, in order that he might send them unobstructedly to Syria
and Egypt; they returned to the camp with a considerable escort of
troops, who seized this opportunity of deserting the city. Different
quarters had just been assigned them, when an Indian struck out
the eye of one of Hulaku’s principal emirs, with an arrow; Hulaku
seized this accident as a pretext for the most sanguinary rage; he
commanded the secretary of state and his suite to be put to death,
and the general, Suleimanshah, and his officers, to be brought,
bound, before him: he said to him, “How comes it, that so great an
astrologer as thou could not foresee the hour of thy death?
Wherefore didst thou not counsel thy lord to enter the path of
submission, in order to save thy own life and that of others?”
Suleimanshah replied, that “the khalif’s evil star had made him deaf
to good advice.” After some interrogatories and replies of this kind,
the general and his officers were put to the sword.
Many thousands, who had surrendered into the hands of the
conqueror on the faith of the safe conduct, were murdered,
unarmed, after they had been separated from each other, on

pretence of being sent into different provinces; a cold-blooded and
faithless cruelty, which, however, is not without example, having
been repeated both in the east and in the west. The history of
Alexander, of Charlemagne, Jengiskhan, Timur, and other
conquerors, presents us with instances similar to this atrocity of
Hulaku, agreeing also wonderfully with it in the number of the
victims,—from three to four thousand,—as well as in the
circumstances of the promised safe retreat, the division into
detachments, and the dialogue held with the commanders, who, for
that very reason, were the more certain of their lives being spared.
The khalif seeing no farther hope of saving his life except by
surrendering to the conqueror, repaired to the khan’s camp, after a
siege of forty-nine days, on Sunday, the 4th of the month Jafer, in
the 656th year of the Hegira; he was attended by his brother and his
two sons, together with a suite of nearly three thousand persons,
kadhis, seids, sheikhs, and imams; only the khalif and the three
princes, his brother and two sons, together with three of the suite
(one in a thousand), in all, seven persons, were admitted to an
audience. Hulaku concealed the perfidy of his designs under the
mask of smooth words, and the most friendly reception. He
requested the khalif to send word into the city that the armed
inhabitants should throw away their weapons, and assemble before
the gates, in order that a general census might be taken. At the
order of the khalif the city poured out its unarmed defenders, who,
as well as the person of Mostassem, were secured. The next day, at
sunrise, Hulaku issued commands to fill up the ditch, demolish the
walls, pillage the city, and massacre the inhabitants. The ditch,
according to the expression of the Persian historian, deep as the
deep reflections of wisdom, and the walls as high as the soaring of a
lofty mind, were, in an hour, levelled. The army of the Mongols, as
numerous as ants and locusts, mined the fortifications like an ant-
hill, and then fell upon the city as destructive as a cloud of the
latter; the Tigris was dyed with blood, and flowed as red as the Nile,
when Moses, by a miracle, changed its waves into blood; or, it was
at least as red as the Egyptian river is to this day, when it is swollen

by that annual miracle of nature, its overflow, and coloured red by
the red loam and sand which it washes down from Abyssinia;
affording a natural explanation of the Mosaic miracle.
The city was a prey to fire and the sword; the minarets and
domes of the mosques glowed, like fiery columns and cupolas; from
the roofs of the mosques and baths, flowed melted gold and lead,
setting on fire the palm and cypress groves which surrounded them.
The gilded battlements of the palaces fell like stars to the earth,—
like the demons who endeavoured to scale the battlements of
Heaven. In the mausolea, the mortal remains of the sheikhs and
pious imams, and in the academies, the immortal works of great and
learned men, were consumed to ashes; books were thrown into the
fire, or where that was distant and the Tigris near, were buried in
the waters of the latter. Gold and silver vessels from the palaces and
kitchens of the great, fell, in such quantities, into the hands of the
ignorant Mongols, that they sold them by weight, like brass or tin.
The treasures of Asiatic splendour and art, accumulated for centuries
in the khalif’s city, became the booty of barbarians. So great a
quantity of Persian and Chinese gold tissues, Arab horses, Egyptian
mules, Greek and Abyssinian slaves of both sexes, coined and
uncoined gold, silver, pearls, and precious stones, was found, that
the private soldier became richer than even the chiefs of the army or
the khan himself had ever been before. And yet the treasures of the
khalif’s palace had not been touched, as these the khan retained for
himself.
After four days’ pillage, he went, on the 9th of the month Safir,
in company with the khalif, to the palace of the latter; where he, as
his guest, as he said, desired his host to give him all that he was
able. This Mongol politeness struck the khalif with such terror, that
his whole body trembled, and as he either had not the keys, or could
not find them, he ordered the bolts and locks to be broken open.
Two thousand costly garments, ten thousand ducats, and many
jewels, were brought out; which the khan, without deigning them a
glance, distributed among his suite, and then turned to the khalif,
with the words: “Thy public treasures belong to my servants; now

produce thy concealed ones.” Mostassem pointed to a spot, on
excavating which were found the two basins of treasure, so
celebrated in the history of the khalifat, each filled with bars of gold,
weighing each a hundred miscals. Nassir-ledinillah’s wise economy
had commenced filling these two vessels; Mostanssur’s prodigality
emptied them; and Mostassem’s avarice again replenished them.
An anecdote is told, in the history of the last reigns of the
khalifs, that Mostanssur, when he paid his first visit to this treasure,
prayed aloud: “Lord, my God! grant me the favour to be enabled to
empty both these vessels during my reign!” The treasurer smiled,
and being asked his reason, he said: “When thy grandfather visited
this treasure, he besought heaven to reign only until he had filled
these two basins; while thou desirest precisely the reverse.”
Mostanssur applied this gold in the foundation of useful institutions,
which immortalize his name; particularly in the erection of the
celebrated academy, which was named after him, Mostansarie, and
also Omm-ol-Medaris, that is, the Mother of Academies. Mostassem,
on the other hand, hoarded gold from avarice; whereas, a politic
application of his riches, in the pay of troops and tribute, might have
saved his throne from ruin.
Hulaku’s cruelty to Mostassem, realized the Grecian fable of the
wishes of King Midas. He commanded plates filled with gold to be
placed before him, instead of food; and on the khalif’s observing
that gold was not food, the Mongol told him, by an interpreter: “For
that very reason that it is not food, wherefore hast thou not rather
given it to thine army to defend thee, or distributed it amongst mine
to satisfy me?” Too late, Mostassem repented the consequences of
his avarice, and after spending a sleepless night, tormented with the
pangs of hunger and conscience, he prayed, in the morning, in the
words of the Koran: “O Lord, my God! possessor of all power; thou
givest it to whom thou wilt, and takest from whom thou wilt; thou
raisest up and pullest down whomsoever thou pleasest; in thy hands
is all goodness, and thou art mighty over all things!”

The khan now held a council of his ministers, to deliberate
concerning the fate of the khalif; and it being their unanimous
opinion, that prolonging his existence would only be preserving the
bloody seeds of war and insurrection, and that only with his life
could the dominion of the khalifat be terminated, his death was
determined. But as Hulaku himself deemed it improper that the
khalif should suffer as an ordinary criminal, and the blood of the
prophet’s successor be shed by the sword, Mostassem was wrapped
in a thick cloth, and beaten to death. So great was the religious
veneration for the sacred person of the khalif, and thus did eastern
etiquette extend even to the execution of kings. From similar
motives of reverence, the Ottoman sultans, when a revolt costs
them their lives, are not strangled, but are put to death by
compression of the genitals:—a singular and elaborate trait of
executioner tenderness!
As the pillage and sack of Bagdad had commenced four days
before the khalif’s death, so it continued forty days afterwards; till
the barbarians dropped their swords from fatigue, and fuel was
wanting for the flames. If we abstract the usual horrors of insulted
humanity, which have been repeated in every sacked city, and only
in Bagdad were carried to the highest pitch of enormity, we shall not
blame the Mongols so much in their conquest of that city, for the
conflagration of the mosques, and the desecration of the mausolea,
for the destruction of the immense treasures, and the melting of the
gold and silver vessels, nor even for the demolition of the bulwarks
of holiness, and the overthrow of the khalif throne, as for the
annihilation of the libraries, and the loss of many hundred thousand
volumes, which fell a prey to the flames.
They consisted of the treasures of Arabic literature, the
accumulation of nearly five hundred years; together with the relics
of the Persian, which had probably been saved from the destruction
of Medain. As the second khalif had commanded his general, in
Egypt, to consume the Alexandrian library, so he also caused that of
Medain, the residence of Khosroes, to be thrown into the Tigris; and
Omar, whom some European historians have in vain endeavoured to

exculpate from this high treason against literature, is loaded with the
double guilt of the double auto da fe of the Greek and the Persian
library, by fire and water. As the Arabs destroyed these libraries, five
centuries before, in two years; so did the Mongols, in the same
space, annihilate the Arabian libraries of Alamut and Bagdad. To this
double conflagration must be added, that of the great libraries of
Tripoli, Nishabur, and Cairo, in the same century. Thus the
conjunction of the seven planets in the same sign of the zodiac,
which indicated, according to some astrologers, a universal deluge,
and according to others, a universal conflagration, might be justly
understood to signify the inundation of the Mongols, and the burning
of the libraries.
A most melancholy observation is suggested by the destruction
of the libraries of Alamut and Bagdad; it is, that the fall of both was
caused by the guilt of learned men: the former, by the perfidy of the
astronomer, Nassireddin; the latter, by the treachery of the bel
esprit, Ibn Alkami; both being sacrificed to their revenge. The fate of
these two learned statesmen, distinguished alike by their great
talents and evil hearts, who caused the overthrow of the Assassins
and the khalifat, falls now to be mentioned. A few words will suffice.
After the conquest of Bagdad, Nassireddin built the celebrated
observatory of Meragha; by which, as well as his astronomical
tables, both his name and that of Hulaku are immortalized in the
history of astronomy. Thus that science derived, at least, some
advantage from the many evils in which astrology had been its
handmaid. Ibn Alkami, the man of letters, and vizier, instead of the
reward he expected, reaped that of a traitor. As such, treated by the
Mongols with the most profound contempt, he died, in a few days, a
prey to remorse and despair. The inhabitants of Bagdad wrote on
every wall, over the gates of the caravanserais and schools, in large
letters cut in marble: “The curse of God on him who curses not Ibn
Alkami!” One of the traitor’s partisans, a Shiite, having expunged the
“not” from one of these inscriptions, was punished with seventy
blows of the bastinado. The name of Ibn Alkami is intimately
interwoven with that of Nassireddin, in the history of the fall of the

Assassins, and the khalifat. Asia long trembled from the shock of the
violent fall of the empire of the dagger, and the prophet’s staff.
The conquest of Bagdad has almost diverted us from our proper
object, not merely by the intrinsic importance of the subject, but
also on account of its intimate connexion with the end of the
Assassins, whose overthrow prepared that of the khalifat.
After their castles in Rudbar and Kuhistan had been razed to the
ground, and numbers of them massacred and scattered, they still
maintained their stand, for fourteen years, in the mountains of Syria,
against the armies of the Mongols, the Franks, and the Egyptian
sultan, Bibars, one of the greatest princes of the Circassian
Mamelukes of Egypt. This prince, who zealously sought for supreme
power, was not inclined to share it any longer with the remains of
the Assassin order, which had been chased from the mountains of
Persia. During his reign, Frank and Arab vessels put into the
Egyptian ports,
277
with embassies; which the Christian and Arabic
princes, such as the German emperor, Alphonso of Arragon, the
commander of Yemen, and others, sent with rich presents to the
Syrian Ismailites. Bibars, in order to show that he was far above all
fear of the order, levied on all these presents the usual customs; and
sent to the superior in Syria, a letter, full of threats and reproaches.
Terrified and humbled by their misfortunes in Persia, they answered
submissively, and with the request that the sultan would not forget
them in his peace with the Franks, but include them in his treaty, in
token of his protection of them as his slaves; and, in fact, Bibars,
who, in this year, concluded a peace with the knights-hospitallers,
made the abolition of the tribute paid by the Ismailites, one of the
conditions of the treaty. The following year, he received an embassy
of the Ismailites, who sent him a sum of money, with the words:
“That the money which they had hitherto paid to the Franks, should,
in future, flow into the treasury of the sultan; and serve for the pay
of the defenders of the true faith”.
278
Three years afterwards,
279
when Sultan Bibars was marching
against the Franks, in Syria, the commanders of the different towns

appeared to do him homage. Nejmeddin, the grand-master of the
Assassins, however, instead of following this example, requested a
diminution of the tribute, which the order now paid to the sultan
instead of the Franks. Saremeddin Mobarek, the commandant of the
Ismailite fortress, Alika, had formerly drawn upon himself the anger
of the sultan; but having received pardon on the intercession of the
governor of Sihinn, or, according to others, of Hama, he appeared
with a numerous suite, in Bibar’s presence, who received him into
favour and loaded him with honours. He granted him the supreme
command of all the castles of the Ismailites in Syria, which were no
longer to be governed by Nejmeddin, but by Saremeddin, in the
name of the sultan of Egypt. Massiat, as the property of the sultan,
was subjected to the command of Emir Aseddin. In conformity with
his orders, Saremeddin appeared before the walls of this fortress; of
which he possessed himself, partly by stratagem, and partly by the
massacre of a number of the inhabitants. Nejmeddin, the late grand-
master of the order, an old man of seventy years of age, and his
son, implored the sultan’s clemency. He had compassion on them;
and granted the former the restoration of his authority, in
conjunction with Saremeddin, in consideration of an annual tribute
of a hundred and twenty thousand drachmas. A contribution of two
thousand gold pieces, was required of Saremeddin; and Nejmeddin
left his son in the sultan’s court, as a pledge of his obedience and
fidelity.
280
In the meanwhile, Saremeddin having taken possession of
Massiat, drove out Aseddin, the governor named by the sultan; but
not being able to maintain the place against the approaching forces
of the sultan, he threw himself into the castle of Alika. Aseddin
returned from Damascus, whither he had taken refuge, again to
Massiat, to the command of which he was restored by the sultan’s
troops, who left him a garrison and body guard. Malik Manssur,
Prince of Hama, who had been charged by Bibars with the
restoration of the emir, and the deposition of Saremeddin, took the
latter prisoner, and brought him before the sultan, who threw him

into a dungeon. The castle of Alika surrendered to the sultan’s army
on the 9th of Shewal.
Nejmeddin, the former grand-prior, again held the command of
the Ismailite castles in Syria,
281
in the name of the sultan, by whom
Shemseddin was retained at court, as the pledge of his father’s
fidelity. On a suspicion being raised against him, he came in person
to court, and offered, with his son, Shemseddin, to deliver up all the
castles, and to live in future in Egypt; his offer was accepted, and
Shemseddin departed for Kehef, to induce the inhabitants to
surrender within twenty days. Not appearing, however, at the end of
this term, the sultan admonished him, by letter, to fulfill his promise;
and Shemseddin desired that the castle of Kolaia should be left in his
possession, in exchange for which he engaged to yield all the rest.
The sultan acceded to his request; and sent Aalemeddin Sanjar, the
judge of Hama, for the purpose of receiving from Shemseddin, the
oath of allegiance, and the keys of Kehef; the inhabitants, however,
secretly instigated by the latter, refused to admit the envoy.
A second embassy having no better effect, Bibars gave orders
for the castle to be besieged. On this, Shemseddin left Kehef, and
repaired to the sultan, who was encamped before Hama, and was
honourably received; receiving, however, intelligence in a letter, that
the inhabitants of Kehef had sent Assassins into the camp, in order
to murder his principal emirs, Bibars caused Shemseddin and all his
suite to be arrested, and carried into Egypt. At the same time, two
officers of the order, who had persuaded their friends in the castle of
Khawabi, to surrender to the sultan, were seized at Sarmin. This
castle surrendered to negotiation, that of Kolaia to force; and, in the
following year, those of Menifa and Kadmus fell into the sultan’s
hands. The inhabitants of Kehef wished to oppose a longer
resistance; but being closely blockaded, and cut off from all relief,
they at length sent Bibars the keys of the town; and the Emir
Jemaleddin Akonsa made his entry on the 22d of Silvide.
From this moment, Bibars was master of all the forts and castles
which had been in the possession of the Ismailites; and he ruined

their power in Syria, as Hulaku had done in Persia. Next to Massiat,
the residence of the grand-master, Shiun, a strong place on a rock,
abundantly supplied with water,
282
and at a short day’s journey from
Latakia, had been lately particularly distinguished, by the valiant
exploits of its commandant, Hamsa, one of the greatest heroes
among the Syrian Ismailites. This Hamsa must not be confounded
with Hamsa, the companion of the prophet, and one of the bravest
heroes of Mohammedanism; nor with Hamsa, the founder of the
religion of the Druses. The numerous battles and enterprises of the
Assassins, their valorous defence against the armies of the
Crusaders, and the Egyptian sultan, Bibars, and the adventurous
character of their whole history, offered a fertile source to the Syrian
romance writers and story-tellers; a source of which they did not fail
to avail themselves.
This was the origin of the Hamsaname, or Hamsiads,
283
a kind
of chivalrous romance, modelled after the style of the Antar,
Dulhemmet, Benihilal, and other Egyptian works. After the conquest
of Syria, by the Ottomans, the tales of the feats and adventures of
Hamsa passed from the mouths of the Arabian story-tellers and
coffee-house orators, to those of the Turks; and Hamsa, together
with Sid Battal (Cid y Campeador) the proper Cid of the orientals, an
Arabian hero, who fell in battle against the Greeks, at the siege of
Constantinople, by Harun al Rashid,
284
afforded the richest materials
for Turkish romances, which are exclusively occupied by the feats of
Hamsa and Sid Battal. The tomb of the Sid in the Anatolian Sanjak
Sultanoghi is, to this day, a much frequented resort of pilgrimages,
enriched by the Sultan Suleiman, the legislator, with the endowment
of a mosque, a convent, and an academy.
285
The conquest of Massiat was succeeded by that of Alika, and, at
length, two years after, by that of Kahaf, Mainoka Kadmus, and of
the other castles on the Antilebanon; and thus the power of the
Ismailites was overthrown, both in Syria and Persia. One of their last
attempts at assassination is said to have been directed against the

person of St. Louis, King of France, but the falsity of this supposition
has already been demonstrated, by French writers.
286
The power of the Ismailites had now terminated, both in Persia
and Syria; the citadels of the grand-master, in Rudbar, and of the
grand-priors, in Kuhistan and Syria, had fallen; the bands of the
Assassins were massacred and scattered; their doctrine was publicly
condemned, yet, nevertheless, continued to be secretly taught, and
the order of the Assassins, like that of the Jesuits, endured long
after its suppression. In Kuhistan, in particular, remains of them still
existed; that being a region which, on account of its very
mountainous character, was more impracticable than the
surrounding countries, and, being less accessible to the persecutors
of the order, it afforded the partisans of the latter a more secure
asylum.
Seventy years after the taking of Alamut and Bagdad, in the
reign of Hulaku’s eighth successor, Abu Said Behadir Khan, the great
protector of the sciences, to whom Wassaf dedicated his history, the
whole of Kuhistan was devoted to the pernicious sect of the
Ismailites, and the doctrine of Islamism had not yet been able to
enter the hearts of the natives, hard as their mountain rocks.
Abusaid determined, in concert with the lieutenant of the province,
Shah Ali Sejestani, to send an apostolic mission, for the conversion
of these miscreants and infidels. At the head of the society of
missionaries, which was composed of zealous divines, was the
Sheikh Amadeddin, surnamed of Bokhara, one of the most esteemed
jurisconsults, who, on the destruction of that city, had fled to
Kuhistan. His grandson, Jelali, in his work, “Nassaih-ol-Moluk”
(Counsels for Kings), dedicated to the Sultan Shahrokh, the son of
Timur, relates the history of this mission from the mouth of his
father, who had accompanied his grandfather to Kuhistan.
287
Amadeddin, with his two sons, Hossameddin and Nejmeddin,
the father of Jelali, and four other Ulemas, in all seven persons,
went to Kain, the chief seat of the Ismailites; where, since the
illuminative period of Hassan II., the mosques had fallen down, the

pious institutions decayed—where the word of the Koran was no
longer heard from the pulpit, nor the call to prayers sounded from
the minaret. As prayer, five times a day, is the first of the duties of
Islamism, and the call to it proclaims aloud the creed of the faithful,
Amadeddin resolved to commence his mission with it. He went,
therefore, with his six companions armed, to the terrace of the
castle of Kain, from whence, they began, at the same instant, to cry
out on all sides: “Say God is great! there is no God but God, and
Mohammed is his prophet. To prayers! Up! to do good!” This
summons, to which the unbelieving inhabitants had long been
unaccustomed, instead of collecting them in the mosque, excited
them to a tumult against the summoners; and, although the latter
had taken the precaution to be armed, they did not deem it
expedient to purchase the crown of martyrdom with their lives, by
defending themselves, but took refuge in a drain, where they hid. As
soon as the people were dispersed, they again mounted the terrace,
and repeated the call to prayers, and the retreat to the drain. In this
manner, their obstinate zeal, supported by the power of the
governor, succeeded in accustoming the ears of the infidels to the
formula of the summons to prayer, and then to that of prayer itself;
and sowed the good seed of the true doctrine of Islamism on the
waste field of infidelity and atheism.
288
While the political wisdom of Abusaid was endeavouring to
extirpate the Ismailite doctrine in Persia, its ashes still smouldered in
Syria; and, from time to time, threw out destructive flames, which
were extinguished in the blood of the slaughtered victims. As it had
originated in Egypt, and had but served as an instrument of the
ambitious designs of the Fatimites; so the Circassian sultans of that
country availed themselves of the last fruits of the wide-spread tree
of murderous policy, in order to execute their revenge, and to try the
dagger on those enemies who resisted the sword. A memorable
instance of such an attempt, is afforded us in the history of the Emir
Kara Sonkor, who had deserted the court of the Egyptian sultans,
and had entered into the service of the khan of the Mongols.

Two years after
289
Abusaid had sent the before-mentioned
learned Jelali to Kuhistan, the Egyptian sultan, Mohammed, the son
of Bibars, sent no less than thirty Assassins from Massiat to Persia,
to sacrifice the Emir Kara Sonkor to his vengeance. They arrived at
Tebris, and the first having been cut to pieces in his murderous
attempt, the report was soon spread that Assassins were come to
murder the Khan Abusaid, the Emir Juban, the Vizier Ali Shah, and
all the Mongol nobles. A second attempt on the life of Kara Sonkor
cost, like the former one, that of the murderer. A similar attack had
been made on the governor of Bagdad, and Abusaid, the great khan,
prudently shut himself up in his tent for eleven days. Nevertheless,
the Egyptian sultan, Mohammed, did not give up his vengeful
attempt on the life of Kara Sonkor. He sent a merchant, named
Yunis, to Tebris, with a large sum of money, to hire new Assassins.
Yunis sent for them from Massiat, and concealed them in his house.
One day, as the Emir Juban was riding in company with the Emirs
Kara Sonkor and Afrem, two Assassins watched a favourable
opportunity to murder the two latter. The first assailant, who was too
hasty in his attack on the Emir Afrem, only tore his clothes with his
dagger, instead of wounding his breast, and being cut down on the
spot, the second did not think it advisable to approach Kara Sonkor.
Inquiries were immediately set on foot into the Funduks
(Fondaeki) of Tebris, for the purpose of discovering the haunts of
the Assassins; the merchant, Yunis, was arrested, but his life was
preserved by the interest of the vizier. The Emirs Afrem and Kara
Sonkor took all necessary precautions for the preservation of their
own. A servant of the latter, a native of Massiat, searched the whole
city of Tebris, to find out the Assassin who was to have poniarded
his lord; and found him, at last, in the person of his own brother.
The emir, in order to gain him over, gave him a hundred pieces of
gold, and a monthly salary of three hundred dirhems, together with
other presents; for which, he was induced to betray his accomplices.
One of them escaped; another stabbed himself; a third expired
under the torture, without confessing anything.

In the meanwhile, the Assassins at Bagdad executed their
commission better than those at Tebris. One of them threw himself
on the governor, as he was going out to ride, and plunged his
dagger into his breast, saying: “In the name of Melek Nassir;” and
escaped so quickly to Massiat, that he could not be overtaken. From
that place, he sent information of the accomplishment of the murder
of the governor, to Sultan Mohammed.
290
The two emirs redoubled
their vigilance; and, by means of the Ismailite in Kara Sonkor’s pay,
discovered four others, who were immediately put to death.
Nejmeddin Selami, who had been sent as ambassador, from
Mohammed to the Khan Abusaid, insinuated himself into a
confidential intercourse with the Emir Juban, and the vizier. He
informed his master of the execution of the four Assassins; in whose
place four others were immediately sent; three of them being
arrested and discovered, expired under the pangs of the torture;
fortunately for Selami, the fourth escaped, who was the bearer of
the sultan’s letter to his plenipotentiary at Massiat, whence he
apprised the sultan of the ill success of his mission.
Selami continued his negotiations with the Emir Juban and the
vizier, so happily, that they concluded a peace with the sultan, on
condition that he should send no more Assassins into their country.
Notwithstanding this, the Emir Kara Sonkor was attacked anew,
while he was hunting, by a murderer, who only, however, wounded
his horse in the thigh, and was immediately killed by the guard.
Even in the suite of the Emir Itmash, who came on his second
embassy to Abusaid’s court, two Assassins were detected; one of
whom immediately stabbed himself, and the other, after refusing to
confess, was put to death in chains. Juban loaded Itmash with
reproaches, saying that, by sending these murderers, the sultan
scoffed at the treaty; and the ambassador assured him, in return,
that if they really were Assassins, they must have arrived at Tebris,
before it was signed. After Itmash and Selami had returned to the
sultan, their master, in Cairo, the latter wrote once more to the
Massiat Ismailites, reproaching them for not fulfilling their contract.
They sent him for answer, one of their best Fedavis, a great eater,

who devoured a calf, and drank forty measures of wine a-day. After
being kept some time, at Keremeddin’s house, in Cairo, he went to
the court of the great Khan Abusaid, in the suite of Selami, who was
sent as ambassador, with presents.
At the feast of Bairam, when the emirs were attending the khan,
Selami ordered the Assassin to watch the moment when Kara Sonkor
should leave the palace, from the banquet: “The first,” said he, “who
comes out, is the destined victim.” By accident, the vizier called the
Emir Kara Sonkor back, just as he was on the point of quitting the
palace; and the governor of Rum, who was dressed in red, like him,
fell beneath the blows of the murderer, who jumped from a roof on
to the governor’s horse, and stabbed him. Being taken, he died
under the most horrible tortures, without confessing a word.
Murderer succeeded murderer, in attempting to satisfy the sultan’s
desire of revenge; but, fortunately, Kara Sonkor escaped them all. If
we may credit the testimony of Macrisi, no less than one hundred
and twenty-four Assassins lost their lives in attempting that of Kara
Sonkor; so little is the life of man in the power of his species, and so
incapable are the tools of murder of cutting the thread of those
days, which the Almighty has numbered.
Three generations after Abusaid’s mission, when the whole of
Kuhistan had returned, at least in appearance, within the pale of the
true faith, the Sultan Shahrokh, the son of Timur, sent Jelali, of Kain,
who usually lived in Herat, and was thence called Al Herat, and Al
Kaini, for the purpose of ascertaining the state of belief in that
province. Jelali felt himself the more called upon to engage in this
inquisitorial affair, as his grandfather had presided over the apostolic
mission, and because the prophet had appeared to him in a dream,
and put a broom in his hand, with which he was to sweep the
country. He interpreted this vision as a celestial call, by which he
was appointed to the high office of cleansing away all the impurities
of unbelief; and he entered upon it with a conscientious zeal, and a
spirit of more than Islamitic toleration. His before-mentioned work,
“The Counsels for Kings,” contains the results of the report of his
inquiry given to Sultan Shahrokh, and likewise, some information

respecting the secret policy of the still unconverted Ismailites, taken
from Jowaini’s “History of Jehan Kusha (the Conqueror of Worlds).”
Within the space of eighteen months, Jelali travelled through
the whole of Kuhistan; and every where found that the Ulemas, or
teachers of the law, were true orthodox Sunnites. The seids, the
descendants of the prophet, passed for such; and, still more, the
dervishes, who represented themselves to be sofis, or mystics. The
emirs of Tabs and Shirkuh were good Sunnites; but the commanders
of the other castles, and even the servants of the government (Beg-
jian), were to be suspected. For the rest, the peasants, merchants,
mechanics, were all good Moslimin.
Notwithstanding the people were entirely devoted to the true
doctrine of Islamism, still it appears that the order preserved its
existence in secret, long after the loss of temporal power, in the
hope of, sometime or other, recovering it, under more favourable
circumstances. The Ismailites, indeed, no longer ventured to
unsheath the dagger against their foes; but the chief aim of their
policy, to acquire influence in affairs of state, remained; they, in
particular, sought to make proselytes of the members of the divan;
in order, by this means, to secure the majority of voices in their
favour, and to stifle in their birth, all complaints and denunciations of
their secret doctrine. For this reason, the author of “Jehan Kusha,
(Conqueror of the World),” as well as the writer of the “Siasset-ol-
Moluk” (Art of Governing; or, Discipline of Kings), warns princes to
place in the divan none of the officers of Kuhistan, who were more
or less to be suspected, on account of their principles. When
intrusted with the management of the finances, they were, indeed,
never in arrear with their contracts; so that the public treasury had
never any claims against them; they, however, ruined the villages
which they farmed, and sent the surplus of the taxes to their secret
superiors, who still preserved an existence at Alamut, the centre of
the ancient splendour of the order. Thither also flowed a portion of
the revenues of pious institutions, the produce of which was
destined for the support of mosques and schools, servants of
religion, and teachers. Similar well-intentioned warnings have, in our

own times, been frequently given to princes: the attentive ear of
government is always the most powerful obstacle to the rise of
secret orders and societies to power.
Remains of the Ismailites still exist both in Persia and Syria,
291
but merely as one of the many sects and heresies of Islamism,
without any claims to power, without the means of obtaining their
former importance, of which they seem, in fact, to have lost all
remembrance. The policy of the secret state-subverting doctrine of
the first lodge of the Ismailites, and the murderous tactics of the
Assassins, are equally foreign to them. Their writings are a shapeless
mixture of Ismailite and Christian traditions, glossed over with the
ravings of the mystic theology. Their places of abode are, both in
Persia and Syria, those of their forefathers, in the mountains of Irak,
and at the foot of Antilebanon.
292
The Persian Ismailites recognise, as their chief, an imam, whose
descent they deduce from Ismael the son of Jafer-Essadik, and who
resides at Khekh, a village in the district of Kum, under the
protection of the shah. As, according to their doctrine, the imam is
an incarnate emanation of the Deity, the imam of Khekh enjoys, to
this day, the reputation of miraculous powers; and the Ismailites,
some of whom are dispersed as far as India, go in pilgrimage, from
the banks of the Ganges and the Indus, in order to share his
benediction. The castles in the district of Rudbar, in the mountains of
Kuhistan, particularly in the vicinity of Alamut, are still inhabited, to
this day, by Ismailites, who, according to a late traveller, go by the
general name of Hosseinis.
293
The Syrian Ismailites live in eighteen villages, dispersed round
their ancient chief place, Massiat, and are under the rule of a sheikh
or emir, who is the nominee of the governor of Hamah. Being
clothed in a pelisse of honour, he engages to pay to Hamah an
annual sum of sixteen thousand five hundred piastres; his vassals
are divided into two parties, the Suweidani and Khisrewi: the former
so named after one of their former sheikhs; the latter, for their
extraordinary veneration of the prophet Khiser (Elias), the guardian

of the spring of life: the former, who are by far the smaller number,
live principally at Feudara, one of the eighteen places under the
jurisdiction of Massiat; three miles east of that fortress lies a strong
castle, whose name, pronounced Kalamus, is probably the same with
the Kadmos of Arabian historians and geographers; from thence, the
chain of mountains, after several windings, descends to the sea,
near Tripoli.
In 1809, the Nossairis, the neighbours and enemies of the
Ismailites, possessed themselves, by treachery, of their chief
fortress, Massiat; the inhabitants were pillaged and murdered; the
booty amounted to more than a million piastres in value. The
governor of Hamah did not suffer this rash enterprise of the
Nossairis to go unpunished; he besieged Massiat, and compelled
them to resign the fortress to its ancient possessors; the latter,
however, sunk into complete political insignificance. Externally they
practise the duties of Islamism with austerity, although they
internally renounce them: they believe in the divinity of Ali; in
uncreated light as the principle of all created things; and in the
Sheikh Rashideddin, the grand-prior of the order in Syria,
contemporary with the grand-master, Hassan II., as the last
representative of the Deity on earth.
We shall mention here, in passing, as they are neighbours of the
Ismailites, the Nossairis, the Motewellis, and the Druses, three sects
anathematized by the Moslems, on account of their infidelity and
lawlessness. Their doctrine agrees, in many points, with that of the
Ismailites; their founders having been animated with the same spirit
of extravagant fanaticism,—of unprincipled licentiousness. The
Nossairis and Druses are both older in their origin than the eastern
Ismailites; the former having appeared in Syria, as a branch of the
Karmathites, as early as the fifth century of the Hegira; the latter
received their laws from Hamsa, a missionary of Hakem-biemrillah’s
from the lodge of Cairo. The former believe, like the Ismailites, in
the incarnation of the divinity in Ali; the latter consider that maddest
of tyrants, Hakem-biemrillah, as a god in the flesh. Both abjure all
the rules of Islamism, or only observe them in appearance; both

hold secret and nocturnal assemblies stigmatized by the Moslimin,
where they give themselves up to the enjoyment of wine and
promiscuous intercourse.
The origin and doctrine of the Motewelli is less known than that
of the Nossairis and Druses. Their name is corrupted from Motewilin,
the interpreters; and therefore, probably, indicates a sect of the
Ismailites, who taught the Tenvil, or allegorical interpretation of the
commands of Islamism, in opposition to the Tensil, or positive letter
of the word, not from God, the sense of which is a command to the
true believer.
294
The reproach of immorality, which these sects share in common,
is certainly much more applicable to the Motewellis than to their
neighbours. For the inhabitants of the village of Martaban, on the
road from Latakia to Aleppo, who offer travellers the enjoyment of
their wives and daughters, and who consider their refusal as an
affront, are Motewellis.
295
In still worse report than the Ismailites, Motewellis, Nossairis
and Druses, are some tribes of Syrian and Assyrian kurds, who are
called Yezidis, because they hold in peculiar veneration Yezid, the
khalif of the Ommia family, who persecuted, sanguinarily, the family
of the prophet, and likewise the devil, neither of whom they curse
like other Moslimin. Their sheikh is called Karabash, that is,
Blackhead, because he covers his head with a black scarf. The name
of their founder is Sheikh Hadi, who, according to opinion, prayed,
fasted, and gave alms for all his future disciples; so that they believe
themselves exempted from these duties of Mohammedanism, and
that, in consideration of his merits, they will go to heaven without
appearing before the tribunal of God.
296
All these still existing sects are designated by the Moslimin,
generally, Sindike (free-thinkers), Mulhad (impious), and Batheni
(esoterics), and, on account of their nocturnal assemblies,
sometimes the one, sometimes the other, receive from the Turks the
name of Mumsoindiren, or the extinguishers; because, according to

the accusations of their religious adversaries, they extinguish the
lights, for the purpose of indulging in promiscuous intercourse,
without regard to kindred or sex.
Similar charges have been, at all times, raised against secret
societies, whenever they concealed their mysteries under the veil of
night; sometimes groundlessly, as against the assemblies of the
early Christians, of whose innocence Pliny affords a testimony;
sometimes but too well founded, as against the mysteries of Isis,
and, still earlier, against the Bacchanalia of Rome. As the latter was
the first secret society mentioned in Roman history, as dangerous to
the state, and which assumed religion as a cloak to every enormity,
the similarity of the subject, renders the mentioning them not out of
place here.
As, in the sixth century, after the flight of the prophet, and the
establishment of Islamism, the pest of the Ismailites threatened,
under the appearance of religion, to undermine and overthrow the
edifice, so, also, in the sixth century, after the foundation of Rome
and the republic, the pest of the Bacchanalians, menaced the ruin of
the city and the state, under the mask of religion.
297
“A Greek, of mean extraction,” says Livy, “came first into Etruria,
skilled in none of the arts which that most learned of all nations has
devoted to the culture of the mind and the body, but a sacrificer and
soothsayer; not that he spread his doctrine by public teaching, or
filling the mind with a sacred horror, but, as the president of secret
and nocturnal sacrifices. At first, but few were initiated; afterwards,
however, the people, both men and women, were admitted. In order
to attract the mind the more, wine and banquets were added to
religious sacrifices. When the intoxication of the wine, night, the
mixture of the sexes, and of youth and age, had extinguished every
shadow of shame, vice and corruption of all kinds burst forth, every
one having at hand the means of gratifying his desires. There was
not merely one species of vice and the mere promiscuous
intercourse of noble youths and maidens; but also from this source
proceeded false witnesses, false documents, false informations, and

accusations, poisoning, and secret murder,—so secret, indeed, that
even the bodies of the dead were not found for sepulchre. Much was
attempted by stratagem, but most by violence. Violence remained
concealed, because, in the midst of the yells, and noise of cymbals
and drums, the cries of the violated and the murdered could not be
heard.”
The consul, Posthumus, had no sooner given intelligence to the
senate of the discovery of the existence and object of this secret
society, than the latter adopted the most powerful measures, for the
safety of the state and the commonweal, and proceeded against the
members of the Bacchanalia, as criminals against the state, with the
utmost rigour. The speech of the consul to the people, advised them
to watch over the peril which threatened the state, from the
conspiracy of vice with religion. “I am not sure (said he) that some
of you may not have fallen into error; for nothing has a more
deceptive appearance than corrupted religion. When the Deity is
made a cloak for iniquity, the mind is seized with terror, lest, in the
punishment of human imposture, some divine law may be
transgressed.” This unveiling of crime, from which the mask of
religion had been torn, and the rigour with which the Bacchanalians
were persecuted, not only in Rome, but also throughout Italy, with
the sword and exile, stifled, in its birth, the monster whose
increasing strength menaced the state with ruin. Had the princes of
the east acted in the same spirit towards the first secret societies
and the emissaries of the lodge of Cairo, as the senate and consuls
had done, the sect of the Ismailites would never have attained
political influence, nor would the blood-dropping branch of Assassins
have sprouted from that poisonous stem.
Unfortunately, as we have seen in the course of this history,
several princes were themselves devoted to the secret doctrine of
infidelity and immorality, and others were deficient in strength to
restrain its progress with effect. Thus, through the blindness of
princes and the weakness of governments—through the credulity of
nations, and the criminal presumption of an ambitious adventurer,
like Hassan Sabah, the monstrous existence of secret societies and

an imperium in imperio, attained so frightful an extent and power,
that the murderer seated himself openly upon the throne, and the
unbounded dominion of the dagger in the hands of the Assassins
was an object of terror to princes and rulers, and insulted mankind
in a manner unexampled and unique in history. We have, more than
once, briefly pointed out the analogy which the constitution of the
order of the Assassins presents with contemporary or more modern
orders; but, although so many points of similarity are found, which
can neither be accidental nor yet spring from the same cause, but
which, probably, through the medium of the Crusades, passed from
the spirit of the east into that of the west, they are still insufficient to
make a perfect companion to the order of the Assassins, which,
thank Heaven, has hitherto been without parallel. The Templars,
incontrovertibly, stand in the next rank to them; their secret maxims,
particularly in so far as relates to the renunciation of positive
religion, and the extension of their power by the acquisition of
castles and strong places, seem to have been the same as those of
the order of the Assassins. The accordance, likewise, of the white
dress and red fillets of the Assassins, with the white mantle and red
cross of the Templars, is certainly remarkably striking.
As the Templars, in many respects, trod in the footsteps of the
Assassins, so also did the Jesuits, whose exertions for the
aggrandisement of their order, and its preservation, if not by political
power, at least by secret connexions and influence, agree entirely
with the similar policy of the Assassins after the fall of Alamut. The
Assassins were, themselves, as we have seen, a branch of the
Ismailites, the proper Illuminati of the east. The institution of their
lodge at Cairo; the various grades of initiation; the appellations of
master, companions, and novices; the public and the secret doctrine;
the oath of unconditional obedience to unknown superiors, to serve
the ends of the order; all agree completely with what we have heard
and read, in our own days, concerning secret revolutionary societies;
and they coincide not less in the form or their constitution, than in
the common object of declaring all kings and priests superfluous.

The ostensible object of this institution was in itself sufficiently
laudable, and the exoteric doctrine had merely for its object the
extension of knowledge, and the mutual support of the members.
The house of science, at Cairo, or the public school of the lodge, was
the temple of the sciences, and the model of all academies; the
greater number of the members were certainly deceived into good
faith by the fair exterior of a beneficent, philanthropical, knowledge-
spreading form; they were a kind of Freemasons, whose native
country, as we have seen, may really be sought and found in Egypt,
if not in the most ancient times, at least in the history of the middle
ages. As in the west, revolutionary societies arose from the bosom of
the Freemasons, so in the east, did the Assassins spring from the
Ismailites.
Traces of retribution immediately executed, which fulfilled the
sentence of the order as infallibly as though it were the arm of fate
itself, are, perhaps, likewise to be found in the proceedings of the
Vehme, or secret tribunal, although its existence only commenced
two hundred years after the extermination of the order of murderers
in Asia.
298
The insanity of the enlighteners, who thought that by
mere preaching, they could emancipate nations from the protecting
care of princes, and the leading-strings of practical religion, has
shown itself in the most terrible manner by the effects of the French
revolution, as it did in Asia, in the reign of Hassan II; and as, at that
period, the doctrine of assassination and treason openly proceeded
from Alamut, so did the doctrine of regicide produce from the French
National Convention, in Jean de Brie, a legion of regicides. The
members of the Convention who sat with Robespierre on the side of
the mountain, and who decreed the king’s execution, would have
been satellites worthy of the Old Man of the Mountain. Like the
initiated to murder, they almost all died a violent death.
The dominion of the Assassins sank under the iron tramp of
Hulaku; their fall drew after it that of the ancient throne of the khalif,
and of other dynasties; thousands bled under the conquering sword
of the Mongols, who went forth as the scourge of Heaven—like Attila

and Jengis Khan, to steel with blood the deadened nerves of
nations. After him, the remains of the hydra of Assassination
quivered in the remnant of the sect of the Ismailites, but powerless
and venomless; held down by the preponderance of the government
in Persia and Syria; politically harmless, somewhat like the juggling
of the Templars of the present day, and other secret societies
watched by the vigilant eye of the police in France.
In writing this history, we have set two things before us as our
object, to have attained which is less our hope than our wish. In the
first place, to present a lively picture of the pernicious influence of
secret societies in weak governments, and of the dreadful
prostitution of religion to the horrors of unbridled ambition.
Secondly, to give a view of the important, rare, and unused historical
treasures, which are contained in the rich magazine of oriental
literature. We have but seized the prey which the lions of history
have abandoned: for Müller, in his twenty-four books of history, has
not mentioned the Assassins at all; and Gibbon, who, according to
his own avowal, let no opportunity escape him of painting scenes of
blood, has treated them but superficially; although, at the same
time, both these great historians have snatched from oblivion, with
the pencil of the most masterly description, many other insignificant
events, the sources of which were accessible to them. We may easily
estimate from this condensed account of all that is worth knowing of
and concerning the order of Assassins, and which is but sparingly
scattered through the works of eastern writers, how many concealed
rarities and costly pearls are to be found in the untrodden depths of
the ocean of Oriental history.
END OF BOOK VII.

AUTHORITIES.
Khitati-missr-lil Macrisi (Arabic). The Topography of Egypt, in 2
vols. folio, in the Imp. Library at Vienna, Nos. 97 and 98.
Mokaddemei Ibn Khaledun (Arabic), and translated into Turkish.
The Historical Prolegomena of Ibn Khaledun, in the collection of
Count Rzewusky.
Jehannuma (Turkish). The Mirror of the World, Hadji Khalfa’s
large geographical work, printed at Constantinople.
Takwimet-tevarikh (Turkish). Hadji Khalfa’s Chronological Tables,
printed at Constantinople.
Gulsheni Khulifa (Turkish). The Khalif’s Rose Garden, by
Nasmisade.
Jamiet-tevarikh (Turkish). The Collector of Histories, by
Mohammed Katib, dedicated to Murad III.; in the author’s collection.
Jami-ol-hikayat, translated into Turkish. The Collector of Tales,
by Jemaleddin Mohammed Alufi; in the author’s collection.
Tenhimet-tevarikh (Turkish). Exposition of Histories, by
Hersarfenn; in the author’s collection.
Nokhbetet-tevarikh. The Selection of Histories, by Mohammed
Effendi; in the author’s collection.
Abulfeda. Annales Muslemici Arabice et Latine, Opera Reiskii,
Edidit Adler. Hafniæ.
Tarikhi Mirkhond. Mirkhond’s Universal History; in the Imperial
Library, at Vienna, and that of Count Rzewusky, and the History of
the Assassins, translated from it, in the Notice de l’Histoire
Universelle de Mirkhond, par M. A. Jourdain.
Tarikhi Ibn Forat. Ibn Forat’s History, in nine vols.; Imperial
Library, Vienna; unique in Europe.

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Leibniz On Causation And Agency Julia Jorati

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