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WorkGottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

Principles of Nature and Grace, Based on Reason

Leibniz asks, in so many words, why there is something rather than nothing, and answers with God.

by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz16 passages held

  • French, the original language
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Original title
Principes de la nature et de la grâce fondés en raison
First published
(published posthumously)
Original language
French

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Overview

The question why there is something rather than nothing is put in so many words in the seventh section of this short French summary, which Leibniz wrote in Vienna in 1714. His answer is the one his system turns on: nothing happens without a sufficient reason, the reason for the world cannot lie inside the chain of things, each of which could have been otherwise, and so it lies in a necessary being, God, who chose the best of the possible worlds. Before reaching the question, the text builds up from substance. Everything is made of simple substances, monads, whose inner life consists of perceptions; animals add feeling and memory, and minds add reflective awareness, which is not the same as perception, since we have many perceptions we never notice. After the question, the text turns to what minds can do with God, knowing and loving him and living as citizens of a moral order, the kingdom of grace, which runs in harmony with the kingdom of nature. It was printed in November 1718, two years after Leibniz's death, in L'Europe savante, a French-language journal from the Netherlands. It runs so close to the Monadology that the two texts were long confused, until J. E. Erdmann printed the French Monadology in 1840. Which of them Leibniz meant for Prince Eugene of Savoy, the emperor's general, has been disputed; Lloyd Strickland, the Monadology's recent translator, holds that it was this one.

Key concepts

What do ‘nature’ and ‘grace’ mean in the title?

Two orders that run in harmony. The kingdom of nature is the world of substances and their perceptions, ordered as the best possible world. The kingdom of grace is the moral order that minds form by knowing and loving God, as citizens under him. The text covers the first, then asks why anything exists, then turns to the second.

What is the principle of sufficient reason, as this text uses it?

The principle that nothing happens without a sufficient reason. Applied to the world as a whole, it yields the text’s central question, why there is something rather than nothing, and its answer: the reason cannot lie in the chain of things, each of which could have been otherwise, and so lies in a necessary being, God.

How does the text rank monads, animals and minds?

By what they add to perception. Every simple substance, or monad, has an inner life of perceptions. Animals add feeling and memory. Minds add reflective awareness, which is not the same as perception, since we have many perceptions we never notice. Reflection is what lets minds know and love God, and so belong to the kingdom of grace.

How is this text related to the Monadology?

Closely: Leibniz wrote both in Vienna in 1714, and they run so near each other that they were long confused. The Principles was printed first, in November 1718 in L’Europe savante, two years after his death; the French Monadology waited until J. E. Erdmann printed it in 1840. Lloyd Strickland holds that this was the text meant for Prince Eugene of Savoy.

Themes of the book

What this book returns to, gathered into themes and ordered by how much of the text each one occupies.

Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing

Why is there anything at all? Leibniz puts the question in so many words, and answers that its reason cannot lie in the chain of things, only in a necessary being.

The question is asked outright in the seventh section. Nothing happens without a sufficient reason, so the existence of the world must have one. It cannot lie inside the chain of things, since each of them could have been otherwise, and so it lies in a necessary being, God. The same reasoning settles why the world is this one rather than another: God chose the best of the possible worlds. The question stands at the text’s hinge: before it, a build-up from simple substances; after it, what minds can do with God.

  • god
  • contingency
  • causation
  • creation
  • best possible world
  • perfection
  • reason
  • metaphysics
  • divine providence

Enter a dialogue

The Kingdom of Nature and the Kingdom of Grace

What can a mind do that an animal cannot? It can know and love God, Leibniz answers, and so become a citizen of a moral order that runs in harmony with nature.

Everything is made of simple substances, monads, whose inner life is perception. Animals add feeling and memory; minds add reflective awareness, which is not the same as perception, since we have many perceptions we never notice. Reflection opens the second half of the text: minds can know God and love him, and so live as citizens of a moral order, the kingdom of grace. That kingdom does not interrupt the kingdom of nature. The two run in harmony, and the title’s two words name them.

  • monads
  • perception
  • animals
  • animal minds
  • memory
  • consciousness
  • soul
  • love of god
  • divine love
  • happiness
  • pleasure
  • harmony
  • immortality

Enter a dialogue

Within this work

passages held
16
distinct concepts
60
by passages held, corpus-wide
#796

Works held

The author's work in order, this book marked in place. Your-language title first, the original beneath it where the two differ; side chips show which full texts are held.

  1. 1684 Meditations on Knowledge, Truth, and Ideas (Meditationes de cognitione, veritate et ideis)

    A journal article of 1684, written into the Arnauld–Malebranche quarrel over ideas; its grades of knowledge return in the Discourse on Metaphysics and the New Essays.

     LA
  2. 1691 Whether the Essence of a Body Consists in Extension (Lettre sur la question si l'essence du corps consiste dans l'étendue)

    Against the Cartesian view that body is nothing but extension: a letter to the Paris Journal des Sçavans in 1691, followed by a second in 1693.

     FR
  3. 1695 New System of Nature (Système nouveau de la nature et de la communication des substances)

    Leibniz's first public statement of his system, printed in Paris in 1695; his replies to Foucher and Bayle kept it in the journals until 1698.

     FR
  4. 1698 On Nature Itself (De ipsa natura)

    An answer to Johann Christoph Sturm in the Acta Eruditorum of 1698, defending forces inside created things and tying the dynamics to the metaphysics of substance.

     LA
  5. 1710 Theodicy (Essais de Théodicée sur la bonté de Dieu, la liberté de l'homme et l'origine du mal)

    Published anonymously at Amsterdam in 1710, it was the book by which the eighteenth century knew Leibniz, and the one Voltaire answered with Candide.

     FR
  6. 1717 The Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence (Recueil des lettres entre Leibniz et Clarke)

    Ten papers exchanged through the Princess of Wales in 1715–16, cut off by Leibniz's death and published by Clarke in 1717.

     FR
  7. 1718 Principles of Nature and Grace, Based on Reason (Principes de la nature et de la grâce fondés en raison) you are here FR
  8. 1720 Monadology (Monadologie)

    Written in French in 1714, it was known for over a century only in German and Latin translation.

     FR
  9. 1765 New Essays on Human Understanding (Nouveaux Essais sur l'entendement humain)

    The book-length reply to Locke, written as a dialogue in 1703–04, withheld after Locke's death and first printed in 1765.

     FR
  10. 1840 Discourse Touching the Method of Certitude and the Art of Discovery (Discours touchant la méthode de la certitude et l'art d'inventer)

    A plea for royal patronage of the sciences, addressed to an unnamed king, apparently Louis XIV, setting out the method of certainty and art of discovery Leibniz pursued for decades.

     FR
  11. 1840 On the Ultimate Origination of Things (De rerum originatione radicali)

    A short Latin essay of 1697 on why there is a world at all, left in manuscript until 1840.

     LA
  12. 1840 Reflections on the Doctrine of a Single Universal Spirit (Considérations sur la doctrine d'un Esprit Universel Unique)

    A French essay written in 1702 at the Prussian queen's palace outside Berlin, and left unprinted until 1840.

     FR
  13. 1846 Discourse on Metaphysics (Discours de métaphysique)

    The opening statement of Leibniz's mature metaphysics, written early in 1686 and left unprinted until 1846.

     FR
  14. 1846 The Leibniz-Arnauld Correspondence (Correspondance de Leibniz et d'Arnauld)

    The exchange of 1686 to 1690 between Leibniz and Arnauld over the Discourse on Metaphysics, every letter carried by the Landgrave of Hessen-Rheinfels.

     FR
  15. 1854 Refutation of Spinoza (Animadversiones ad Joh. Georg. Wachteri librum de recondita Hebraeorum philosophia)

    Private Latin notes on Wachter's book about Spinoza and the Kabbalah, given their title by the French scholar who published them in 1854.

     FR
  16. 1890 Tentamen Anagogicum: An Anagogical Essay in the Investigation of Causes (Essai anagogique dans la recherche des causes)

    A French essay of about 1696, from the years of Leibniz's dynamics, defending final causes against the mechanical philosophers.

     FR
  17. 1903 New Openings (Nouvelles Ouvertures)

    Written in French in 1686, by the Academy edition's dating, and left in manuscript until Couturat printed it in 1903.

     FR
  18. 1903 Preface to the General Science (Préface de la Science générale)

    Probably from 1677, an unfinished preface to the universal language of reasoning, unprinted until 1903.

     FR
  19. 1915 Confessio Philosophi (Confessio philosophi)

    Leibniz's first developed theodicy, a Latin dialogue from his Paris years; revised after Steno's objections, its account of sin returns much changed in the Theodicy of 1710.

     LA
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