[Footnote 1:  The objection has been made against Leibnitz, and not without reason, that strictly speaking there is no content for the representation of the monads, although he appears to offer them the richest of all contents, the whole world.  The “All” which he makes them represent is itself nothing but a sum of beings, also representative.  The objects of representation are merely representing subjects; the monad A represents the monads from B to Z, while these in turn do nothing more than represent one another.  The monad mirrors mirrors—­where is the thing that is mirrored?  The essence of substance consists in being related to others, which themselves are only points of relation; amid mere relativities we never reach a real.  That which prevented Leibnitz himself from recognizing this empty formalism was, no doubt, the fact that for him the mere form of representation was at once filled with a manifold experiential content, with the whole wealth of spiritual life, and that the quantitative differences in representation, which for him meant also degrees of feeling, desire, action, and progress, imperceptibly took on the qualitative vividness of individual characteristics.  Moreover, it must not be overlooked that the spiritual beings represent not merely the universe but the Deity as well, hence a very rich object.]

All monads represent the same universe, but each one represents it differently, that is, from its particular point of view—­represents that which is near at hand distinctly, and that which is distant confusedly.  Since they all reflect the same content or object, their difference consists only in the energy or degree of clearness in their representations.  So far then, as their action consists in representation, distinct representation evidently coincides with complete, unhindered activity, confused representation with arrested activity, or passivity.  The clearer the representations of a monad the more active it is.  To have clear and distinct perceptions only is the prerogative of God; to the Omnipresent everything is alike near.  He alone is pure activity; all finite beings are passive as well, that is, so far as their perceptions are not clear and distinct.  Retaining the Aristotelian-Scholastic terminology, Leibnitz calls the active principle form, the passive matter, and makes the monad, since it is not, like God, purus actus and pure form, consist of form (entelechy, soul) and matter.  This matter, as a constituent of the monad, does not mean corporeality, but only the ground for the arrest of its activity.  The materia prima (the principle of passivity in the monad) is the ground, the materia secunda (the phenomenon of corporeal mass) the result of the indistinctness of the representations.  For a group of monads appears as a body when it is indistinctly perceived.  Whoever deprives the monad of activity falls into the error of Spinoza; whoever takes away its passivity or matter falls into the opposite error, for he deifies individual beings.