On the Thesis.
When I speak of a whole, which necessarily consists of simple parts,
I understand thereby only a substantial whole, as the true
composite; that is to say, I understand that contingent unity of the
manifold which is given as perfectly isolated (at least in thought),
placed in reciprocal connection, and thus constituted a unity. Space
ought not to be called a compositum but a totum, for its parts are
possible in the whole, and not the whole by means of the parts. It
might perhaps be called a compositum ideale, but not a compositum
reale. But this is of no importance. As space is not a composite of
substances (and not even of real accidents), if I abstract all
composition therein— nothing, not even a point, remains; for a point
is possible only as the limit of a space— consequently of a composite.
Space and time, therefore, do
not consist of simple parts. That
which belongs only to the condition or state of a substance, even
although it possesses a quantity (motion or change, for example),
likewise does not consist of simple parts. That is to say, a certain
degree of change does not originate from the addition of many simple
changes. Our inference of the simple from the composite is valid
only of self—subsisting things. But the accidents of a state are not
self—subsistent. The proof, then, for the necessity of the simple,
as the component part of all that is substantial and composite, may
prove a failure, and the whole case of this thesis be lost, if we
carry the proposition too far, and wish to make it valid of everything
that is composite without distinction— as indeed has really now and
then happened. Besides, I am here speaking only of the simple, in so
far as it is necessarily given in the composite— the latter being
capable of solution into the former as its component parts. The proper
signification of the word
monas (as employed by Leibnitz) ought to
relate to the simple, given
immediately as simple substance (for
example, in consciousness), and not as an element of the
composite. As
an clement, the term
atomus* would be more appropriate. And as I wish
to prove the existence of simple substances, only in relation to,
and as the elements of, the composite, I might term the antithesis
of the second Antinomy, transcendental
Atomistic. But as this word has
long been employed to designate a particular theory of corporeal
phenomena (
moleculæ), and thus presupposes a basis of empirical
conceptions, I prefer calling it the dialectical principle of
Monadology.
[*]
A masculine formed by Kant, instead of the common neuter atomon, which is generally
tranlated in the scholastic philosophy by the terms inseparabile, indiscernible, simplex. Kant
wished to have a term opposed to monas, and so hit upon this ... With Democritus ..., and with Cicero
atomus is feminine. — Note by Rosenkranz.