Most people have heard of the “Harmonie Pre-etablie” of Leibnitz; it is borrowed without acknowledgment from Spinoza, and adapted to the Leibnitzian system.  “Man,” says Leibnitz, “is composed of mind and body; but what is mind and what is body, and what is the nature of their union?  Substances so opposite in kind, it is impossible to suppose can affect one another; mind cannot act on matter, or matter upon mind; and the appearance of such mutual action of them on each other is an appearance only and a delusion.”  A delusion so general, however, required to be accounted for; and Leibnitz accounted for it by supposing that God in creating a world, composed of material and spiritual phenomena, ordained from the beginning that these several phenomena should proceed in parallel lines side by side in a constantly corresponding harmony.  The sense of seeing results, it appears to us, from the formation of a picture upon the retina.  The motion of the arm or the leg appears to result from an act of will; but in either case we mistake coincidence for causation.  Between substances so wholly alien there can be no intercommunion; and we only suppose that the object seen produces the idea, and that the desire produces the movement, because the phenomena of matter and the phenomena of spirit are so contrived as to flow always in the same order and sequence.  This hypothesis, as coming from Leibnitz, has been, if not accepted, at least listened to respectfully; because while taking it out of its proper place, he contrived to graft it upon Christianity; and succeeded, with a sort of speculative legerdemain, in making it appear to be in harmony with revealed religion.  Disguised as a philosophy of Predestination, and connected with the Christian doctrine of Retribution, it steps forward with an air of unconscious innocence, as if interfering with nothing which Christians generally believe.  And yet, leaving as it does no larger scope for liberty or responsibility than when in the hands of Spinoza,* Leibnitz, in our opinion, has only succeeded in making it infinitely more revolting.  Spinoza could not regard the bad man as an object of Divine anger and a subject of retributory punishment.  He was not a Christian, and made no pretension to be considered such; and it did not occur to him to regard the actions of a being which, both with Leibnitz and himself, is (to use his own expression) an automaton spirituale, as deserving a fiery indignation and everlasting vengeance.

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* Since these words were written a book [Refutation lnedite de Spinoza.  Par Leibnitz.  Precedee d’une Memoire, par Foucher de Carell.  Paris. 1854.] has appeared in Paris by an able disciple of Leibnitz, which, although it does not lead us to modify the opinion expressed in them, yet obliges us to give our reasons for speaking as we do.  M. de Careil has discovered in the library at Hanover a Ms. in the handwriting of Leibnitz, containing a series of remarks on the book of a certain John Wachter.