the former deals with the social, the public, and in a certain sense the external, aspects of morality.
Puffendorf undoubtedly suggested this division to Leibniz by his classification of duties as external and internal,—the first comprehending natural and civil law, the second moral theology. But Puffendorf confined the former to purely external acts, excluding motives and intentions, and the latter to divine revelation. Both are “positive,” and in some sort arbitrary,—one resting merely on the fact that certain institutions obtain, the other on the fact that God has made certain declarations. To Leibniz, on the other hand, the will of God is in no sense the source of moral truths. The will of God does not create truth, but carries into effect the eternal truths of the divine understanding. Moral truths are like those of mathematics. And again, there is no such thing as purely external morality: it always contains an inner content, of which the external act is only the manifestation. Leibniz may thus be said to have made two discoveries, or rather re-discoveries: one, that there is a science of morals, independent of law, custom, and positive right; the other, that the basis of both “natural” and “positive” morals is not the mere will of God, but is reason with its content of eternal truths.
In morals the end is happiness, the means wisdom. Happiness is defined, not as an occurrence, but as a condition, or state of being. “It is the condition of permanent joy. This does not mean that the joy is actually felt every moment, but that one is in the condition to enjoy whenever he thinks of it, and that, in the interval, joyfulness arises from his activity and being.” Pleasure, however, is not a state, but a feeling. It is the feeling of perfection, whether in ourselves or in anything else. It does not follow that we perceive intellectually either in what the perfection of the pleasant thing consists or in what way it develops perfection within us. It is enough that it be realized in feeling, so as to give us pleasure. Perfection is defined “as increase of being. As sickness is, as it were, a lowering and a falling off from health, so perfection is something which mounts above health. It manifests itself in power to act; for all substance consists in a certain power, and the greater the power the higher and freer the substance. But power increases in the degree that the many manifests itself from one and in one, while the one rules many from itself and transforms them into self. But unity in plurality is nothing else than harmony; and from this comes order or proportion, from which proceeds beauty, and beauty awakens love. Thus it becomes evident how happiness, pleasure, love, perfection, substance, power, freedom, harmony, proportion, and beauty are bound up in one another.”
From this condensed sketch, taken from Leibniz himself, the main features of his ethical doctrine clearly appear. When we were studying freedom we saw that it was not so much a starting-point of the will as its goal and ideal. We saw also that true freedom is dependent upon knowledge, upon recognition of the eternal and universal. What we have here is a statement of that doctrine in terms of feeling and of will instead of knowledge. The end of man is stated to be happiness, but the notion of happiness is developed in such a way that it is seen to be equivalent to the Aristotelian notion of self-realization; “it is development of substance, and substance is activity.” It is the union of one and the many; and the one, according to the invariable doctrine of Leibniz, is the spiritual element, and the many is the real content which gives meaning to this rational unity. Happiness thus means perfection, and perfection a completely universalized individual. The motive toward the moral life is elsewhere stated to be love; and love is defined as interest in perfection, and hence culminates in love of God, the only absolute perfection. It also has its source in God, as the origin of perfection; so that Leibniz says, Whoso loves God, loves all.
Natural right, as distinguished from morals, is based upon the notion of justice, this being the outward manifestation of wisdom, or knowledge,—appreciation of the relation of actions to happiness. The definitions given by Leibniz are as follows: Just and unjust are what are useful or harmful to the public,—that is, to the community of spirits. This community includes first God, then humanity, then the state. These are so subordinated that, in cases of collision of duty, God, the universe of relations, comes before the profit of humanity, and this before the state. At another time Leibniz defines justice as social virtue, and says that there are as many kinds of “right” as there are kinds of natural communities in which happiness is an end of action. A natural community is defined as one which rests upon desire and the power of satisfying it, and includes three varieties,—domestic, civil, and ecclesiastic. “Right” is defined as that which sustains and develops any natural community. It is, in other words, the will for happiness united with insight into what makes happiness.
Corresponding to the three forms of the social organism (as we should now call the “natural community”), are the three kinds of jus,—jus strictum, equity, and piety. Each of these has its corresponding prescript. That of jus strictum is to injure no one; of equity, to render to each his own; and of piety, to make the ethical law the law of conduct. Jus strictum includes the right of war and peace. The right of peace exists between individuals till one breaks it. The right of war exists between men and things. The victory of person over thing is property. Things thus come to possess the right of the person to whom they belong as against every other person; that is, in the right of the person to himself as against the attacks of another (the right to peace) is included a right to his property. Jus strictum is, of course, in all cases, enforceable by civil law and the compulsory force which accompanies it. Equity, however, reaches beyond this to obligation in cases where there is no right of compulsion. Its law is, Be of aid to all, but to each according to his merits and his claims. Finally comes piety. The other two stages are limited. The lowest is negative, it wards off harm; the second aims after happiness, but only within the limits of earthly existence. That we should ourselves bear misery, even the greatest, for the sake of others, and should subject the whole of this existence to something higher, cannot be proved excepting as we regard the society, or community, of our spirits with God. Justice with relation to God comprehends all virtues. Everything that is, is from God; and hence the law of all conduct is to use everything according to its place in the idea of God, according to its function in the universal harmony. It thus not only complements the other two kinds of justice but is the source of their inner ethical worth. “Strict justice” may conflict with equity. But God effects that what is of use to the public well-being—that is, to the universe and to humanity—shall be of use also to the individual. Thus from the standpoint of God the moral is advantageous, and the immoral hurtful. Kant’s indebtedness to Leibniz will at once appear to one initiated into the philosophy of the former.
Leibniz never worked out either his ethics or his political philosophy in detail; but it is evident that they both take their origin and find their scope in the fact of man’s relationship to God, that they are both, in fact, accounts of the methods of realizing a universal but not a merely formal harmony. For harmony is not, with Leibniz, an external arrangement, but is the very soul of being. Perfect harmony, or adaptation to the universe of relations, is the end of the individual, and man is informed of his progress toward this end by an inner sentiment of pleasure.
It may be added that Leibniz’s æsthetic theory, so far as developed, rests upon the same basis as his ethical,—namely, upon membership in the “city of God,” or community of spiritual beings. This is implied, indeed, in a passage already quoted, where he states the close connection of beauty with harmony and perfection. The feeling of beauty is the recognition in feeling of an order, proportion, and harmony which are not yet intellectually descried. Leibniz illustrates by music, the dance, and architecture. This feeling of the harmonious also becomes an impulse to produce. As perception of beauty may be regarded as unexplained, or confused, perception of truth, so creation of beauty may be considered as undeveloped will. It is action on its way to perfect freedom, for freedom is simply activity with explicit recognition of harmony.
We cannot do better than quote the conclusion of the matter from Leibniz’s “Principles of Nature and of Grace,” although, in part, it repeats what we have already learned. “There is something more in the rational soul, or spirit, than there is in the monad or even in the simple soul. Spirit is not only a mirror of the universe of creatures, but is also an image of the divine being. Spirit not only has a perception
