correspondence of all the parts of the world.  I have but little to say in answer to this:  I shall only observe that this supposition when sufficiently cleared is the right way of solving all the difficulties.  M. Leibniz, through the [46] penetration of his great genius, has very well conceived the extent and strength of this objection, and what remedy ought to be applied to the main inconveniency.  I do not doubt but that he will smooth the rough parts of his system, and teach us some excellent things about the nature of spirits.  Nobody can travel more usefully or more safely than he in the intellectual world.  I hope that his curious explanations will remove all the impossibilities which I have hitherto found in his system, and that he will solidly remove my difficulties, as well as those of Father Lami.  And these hopes made me say before, without designing to pass a compliment upon that learned man, that his system ought to be looked upon as an important conquest.

’He will not be much embarrassed by this, viz. that whereas according to the supposition of the Cartesians there is but one general law for the union of spirits and bodies, he will have it that God gives a particular law to each spirit; from whence it seems to result that the primitive constitution of each spirit is specifically different from all others.  Do not the Thomists say, that there are as many species as individuals in angelic nature?’

Leibniz acknowledged Bayle’s note in a further reply, which is written as though for publication.  It was communicated to Bayle, but it was not in fact published.  It is dated 1702.  It may be found in the standard collections of Leibniz’s philosophical works.  It reads almost like a sketch for the Theodicy.

The principal point developed by Leibniz is the richness of content which, according to him, is to be found in each ‘simple substance’.  Its simplicity is more like the infinitely rich simplicity of the divine Being, than like the simplicity of the atom of Epicurus, with which Bayle had chosen to compare it.  It contains a condensation in confused idea of the whole universe:  and its essence is from the first defined by the part it is to play in the total harmony.

As to the musical score (’tablature of notes’) which the individual soul plays from, in order to perform its ordained part in the universal harmony, this ‘score’ is to be found in the confused or implicit ideas at any moment present, from which an omniscient observer could always deduce what is to happen next.  To the objection ’But the created soul is not an omniscient observer, and if it cannot read the score, the score is useless to it’,[47] Leibniz replies by affirming that much spontaneous action arises from subjective and yet unperceived reasons, as we are all perfectly aware, once we attend to the relevant facts.  All he claims to be doing is to generalize this observation.  All events whatsoever arise from the ’interpretation of the score’ by monads, but very little of this ‘interpretation’ is in the least conscious.