Monadology
Monadology
(from Gr. , unity, and , discourse) is the term applied to the doctrine or science of Monads, which was filly developed by the German philosopher Leibnitz. He conceived the whole universe, bodies as well as minds, to be made up of monads, that is, simple substances; each of which is, by the Creator, in the beginning of its existence, endowed with certain active and perceptive powers. A monad, therefore, is an active substance, simple, without parts or figure, which has within itself the power to produce all the changes it undergoes from the beginning of its existence to eternity. The changes which the monad undergoes, of what kind soever, though they may seem to us the effect of causes operating from without, are oily the gradual and successive evolutions of its own internal powers, which would have produced all the same changes and motions although there had been no other being in the universe (Reid, Intell. Powers, essay 2, chapter 15). Monadology, says Cousin, rests upon this axiom: every substance is at the same time a cause, and, every substance being a cause, has therefore in itself the principle of its own development; such is the monad it is a simple force. Each monad has relation to all others; it corresponds with the plan of the universe; it is the universe abridged; it is, as Leibnitz says, a living mirror which reflects the entire universe under its own point of view. But every monad being simple, there is no immediate action of one monad upon another; there is, however, a natural relation of their respective development, which makes their apparent communication; this natural relation, this harmony, which has its reason in the wisdom of the supreme Director, is pre-established harmony (Hist. of Mod. Philos. 2:86). See Ueberweg, Hist. Philos. 2:92 sq., 107 sq.; also pages 27, 54, 130, 145, 312, 316, 336, 507. SEE LEIBNITZ; SEE NEO-PLATONISM.
Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
Monadology
(also Monadism) The doctrine of monads, the theory that the universe is a composite of elementary units. A monad may also be a metaphysical unit. The notion of monad can be found in Pythagoras, Ecphantus, Aristotle, Euclid, Augustine, et al. Plato refers to his ideas as monads. Nicolaus Cusanus regards individual things as units which mirror the world. Giordano Bruno seems to have been the first to have used the term in its modern connotation. God is called monas monadum; each monad, combining matter and form, is both corporeal and spiritual, a microcosm of the whole. But the real founder of monadology is Leibniz. To him, the monads are the real atoms of nature, the elements of things. The monad is a simple substance, completely different from a material atom. It has neither extension, nor shape, nor divisibility. Nor is it perishable. Monads begin to exist or cease to exist by a decree of God. They are distinguished from one another in character, they “have no windows” through which anything can enter in or go out, that is, the substance of the monad must be conceived as force, as that which contains in itself the principle of its changes. The universe is the aggregate, the ideal bond of the monads, constituting a harmonious unity, pre-established by God who is the highest in the hierarchy of monads. This bond of all things to each, enables every simple substance to have relations which express all the others, every monad being a perpetual living mirror of the universe. The simple substance or monad, therefore, contains a plurality of modifications and relations even though it has no parts but is unity. The highest monad, God, appears to be hoth the creator and the unified totality and harmony of self-active and self-subsistent monnds. — J.M.