In book II, chapter 27 of New Essays on Human Understanding Philalethes and Theophilus discuss of identity and diversity. The long chapter deals with both personal identity and the principle of identity of organic things. While Locke finds the unity of a single plant to consist of cohesion of parts in one body, Leibniz relies on an enduring principle of life which he calls ‘monad’ (E II, xxvii, §4). Thus the organization of parts is not sufficient, as it is separate from individuality. Leibniz argues that the subject can change shapes. Leibniz somewhat poetically adds that in substantial beings a certain indivisible spirit animates them. Therefore organic individuals are analogous to persons – Locke agrees in this matter from his perspective. Leibniz says: “They remain perfectly ‘the same individual’ in virtue of this soul or spirit which makes them in substances which think”.
In the chapter Leibniz mentions the incessancy of a beast’s soul (II, xxvii, §9) which retains physical identity but does not include awareness. On the other hand, in NE III, ch. VI Leibniz admits that we do not know very well how plants are generated. But he is firm to assign subtantial forms to all of nature: “But the privilege should not be restricted to man alone, as though nature were put together higgledy-piggledy. There is reason to think that there is an infinity of souls, or more generally of primary entelechies, possessing something analogous to perception and appetite, and that all of them are and forever remain substantial forms of bodies.” (E III, vi, §24). This applies even to salts, minerals and metals, as Leibniz continues to argue.
In this paper I am interested in the telos of the organisms. The moral identity of a person consists of striving for virtue and wisdom. What about organisms which do not have self-consciousness? How does the substantial form or entelechy manifest its telos, its purpose? Leibniz often claims that nature is hierarchical – in Monadology, §18 he says that there is certain degree of perfection in each created thing. As the properties of perception and appetition are common to all substances, it should be evident that all strive analogously somehow (sometimes Leibniz discusses animal instincts). But how would a stone, for example, be more or less perfect? Are entelechies just ingenious machines whose purpose we do not know? The idea is easier to understand in animals which can transform, let us say, from a caterpillar to a butterfly (pre-formation theory).
Some of Leibniz’s remarks on this topic are very Aristotelian: he says that bees are meant to produce honey while men and are meant to contemplate. On the other hand, in NE III, ch. VI Leibniz admits that we do not know very well how plants are generated, for example. Indeed, there are contra-aristotelian currents in Leibniz’s later texts. In Monadology and elsewhere, Leibniz gives men a special space in the universe which gives rise to the thought that the organic beings are made for us, the special elite of living beings. Thus one would think that perfections of each natural species contribute to our happiness. The birds sing, bees make honey etc. for our pleasure. But do we really know anything about this? Very soon we come to the question of theodicy. God, the creator of substantial forms knows what are the purposes of each natural kind, and perhaps we just have to trust on his good intentions that the perfections of even of those animals we do not like or which eat us, are for the common good.
In this paper I will discuss the perfection concerning organic things or beings. My main sources are New System of Nature, New Essays Concerning Human Understanding, Monadology, Principles of Nature and Grace, Based on Reason, correspondence with Bayle and Stahl and Theodicy.
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