Written no earlier than September - no later than 4 (17) November 1914.
First published in 1930 in the Lenin Collection XII

Printed from the manuscript

L.
FEUERBACH.
COLLECTED WORKS,

Vol. IV, 1910. LEIBNIZ, etc.
In his brilliant exposition of Leibniz, one must note some particularly outstanding passages (this is not easy, for all - i.e., the first part (§ 1-13) is an outstanding work), then the additions of 1847.
("Leibniz" was written by Feuerbach in 1836, when he was still an idealist)
 § 20

§ 21

and individual passages of 1847
Page 27 - the distinctive feature of Leibniz from Spinoza: to the concept of substance, Leibniz adds the concept of force "and moreover, active force"... the principle of "self-activity" (29) -
—————— Ergo*, Leibniz approached the principle of the inseparable (and universal, absolute) connection of matter and motion through theology. This, it seems, is how Feuerbach should be understood?
—————— Page 32: "The essence of Spinoza is unity, the essence of Leibniz is difference, distinction."
Page 34: The philosophy of Spinoza is a telescope, that of Leibniz is a microscope 52.
"The world of Spinoza is the achromatic glass of divinity, a medium through which we see nothing but the uncolored heavenly light of a single substance;

* - Therefore. Ed.

the world of Leibniz is a multi-faceted crystal, a diamond, which, by virtue of its peculiar nature, transforms the simple light of substance into an infinitely varied richness of colors and at the same time darkens it" (sic!).
Page 40: "Therefore, for Leibniz, physical substance is not only extended, dead, and externally moved mass, as with Descartes, but as substance, it has within itself an active force, a principle of activity that knows no rest."
—————— For this, Marx surely valued Leibniz 53, despite his, Leibniz's, "Lassallean" features and conciliatory tendencies in politics and religion.
—————— Monad - the principle of Leibniz's philosophy. Individuality, movement, soul (of a special kind). Not dead atoms, but living, moving, reflecting the entire world within themselves, possessing (vague) representational ability (souls of a kind) monads, these are the "ultimate elements" (p. 45).
Each monad is distinct from another.
NB
"… It would completely contradict the beauty, order, and reason of nature if the principle of life or internal, proper actions were connected only with a small or particular part of matter" (Leibniz - p. 45).
"Therefore, all of nature is full of souls, as the ancient philosophers rightly believed, or beings analogous to souls. For the microscope provides evidence
that there are many living beings invisible to the eye, and that there are more souls than grains of sand and atoms" (Leibniz - p. 45).
Compare with electrons!
Properties of the monad: Vorstellung, Repräsentation*.

* - representation, representation. Ed.

SUMMARY OF FEUERBACH'S BOOK ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF LEIBNIZ
"Representation itself is nothing other than the representation (reproduction and depiction) of the complex or external, i.e., multiplicity in the simple"… or … "a transient state, which in unity, or in simple substance, contains and reproduces multiplicity" (p. 49, Leibniz) - verworrene* (p. 50) (confuse**, p. 52) Vorstellung in the monad - (and in humans, there are many unconscious, verworrene, sensations, etc.).
Each monad is "a world unto itself, each is a self-sufficient unity"
(Leibniz, p. 55).
"A mixture of vague representations - this is what sensations are, this is what matter is" (Leibniz - p. 58)… "Therefore, matter is the connection of monads" (ib.)...
My free interpretation:

Monads = souls of a kind. Leibniz = an idealist.

And matter is something like the otherness of the soul or a jelly, binding them with a worldly, corporeal bond.
"Absolute reality exists only in monads and their representations" (Leibniz, p. 60). Matter is merely a phenomenon.
"Clarity is only spirit" (p. 62),… matter, on the other hand, is "obscurity and unfreedom" (64).
Space "in itself is something ideal" (Leibniz, p. 70-71).
… "The material principle of the diversity of matter is motion"… (72).
"Just as, contrary to the opinion of Newton and his followers, there is no empty space in material nature. The air pump does not prove the existence of a vacuum, for the glass has pores through which various kinds of fine matter can pass" (Leibniz, 76-77).
"Matter is a phenomenon" (Leibniz, 78). "The being-for-itself of the monad is its soul, its being-for-others is matter" (Feuerbach, 78). The human soul - the central, highest
monad, entelechy 54, etc. etc.
"Therefore, every body is affected by everything that happens in the Universe" (Leibniz, 83).
"The monad represents the entire Universe" (Leibniz, 83).
NB

Leibniz lived 1646-1716 "Despite its indivisibility, the monad has a complex
inclination, i.e., a multitude of representations, each of which
tends toward its own specific changes and, by virtue of their essential connection with all other things, are also present in it"… "Individuality contains within itself, as if in a germ, the infinite" (Leibniz, 84).
Here is a kind of dialectic, very profound, despite the idealism and clericalism.

↓—————————<<< "Everything in nature is similar" (Leibniz, 86).
NB
"Generally, in nature, there is nothing absolutely discontinuous; all
opposites, all boundaries of space and time, as well as peculiarities, disappear before the absolute continuity, before the infinite connection of the Universe" (Feuerbach, 87).
"Although the monad, by virtue of its special nature, consisting of nerves alone, and not of flesh and blood, is affected and excited by everything that happens in the Universe"… nevertheless "it is not one of the actors, but remains only a spectator
of the world drama. And this is the fundamental defect of the monads" (Feuerbach, 90).
The harmony of soul and body - harmonie préétablie * by God.
"The weak side of Leibniz" (Feuerbach, 95) 55.

* - pre-established harmony. Ed.

SUMMARY OF FEUERBACH'S BOOK ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF LEIBNIZ
"The soul is a kind of spiritual automaton" (Leibniz, 98). (And Leibniz himself once says that the transition from occasionalism to his philosophy is easy, 56, Feuerbach, 100.) But for Leibniz, this is derived from the "nature of the soul"... (101).
In "Theodicy" (§ 17), Leibniz essentially repeats the ontological argument for the existence of God. 57
Leibniz criticized Locke's empiricism in his "Nouveaux essais sur l'entendement," saying, *nihil est in intellectu etc. nisi intellectus ipse* (!) (152) 58.
(Feuerbach, in the first edition, also criticizes Locke idealistically.)
The principle of "necessary truths" lies "within us" (Leibniz, 148).
Compare Kant as well. 59
Within us lie the ideas of substance, change, and so on (Leibniz, 150).
"To obtain a definition through reason in the direction of the best—this is the highest degree of freedom" (Leibniz, 154).
"Leibniz's philosophy is idealism" (Feuerbach, 160) and so on and so forth.
... "The joyful, life-filled polytheism of Leibniz's monadology has passed into the severe, but therefore more spiritual and intense monotheism of 'transcendental idealism'" (Feuerbach, 188).
transition to Kant
|¯Pages 188-220: additions from 1847.¯|
Page 188: "Idealistic, a priori philosophy"...
"But, of course, what is a posteriori for man is a priori for the philosopher; for once man has gathered the data of experience and united them in general concepts, he is naturally capable of expressing
mockery of Kant

* - there is nothing in the intellect, etc., except the intellect itself. Ed.

"synthetic judgments a priori." Therefore, what was a matter of experience at an earlier time becomes a matter of reason at a later time... For example, both electricity and magnetism were once only empirical, that is, here—accidental, properties observed in individual bodies, but now, thanks to numerous observations, they have become properties of all bodies, essential properties of body in general... Thus, only from the standpoint of the history of humanity can
a positive answer be given to the question of the origin of ideas"... (191-192).
The soul is not wax, not a *tabula rasa*... "For the creation of a representation, something different from the object is necessary, and it would be true foolishness if I wanted to derive this difference, which underlies the very essence of the representation, from the object. But what is this? The form of universality; for even the individual idea, or representation—at least in comparison with the actual, individual object—is initially, as Leibniz notes, something general, that is, in this case, indefinite, erasing, destroying differences. Sensation is massive, uncritical, lush, while the idea, the representation, is limited to the general and necessary" (192).
Leibniz and Kant "Thus, the main thought of the 'New Essays on Human Understanding'—like the main thought of the 'Critique of Pure Reason'—consists in the fact that universality and the necessity inseparable from it express the very nature of reason or of an entity capable of having representations, and therefore cannot have their source in the organs of sense, or in experience, i.e., cannot come from outside"... (193).
necessity is inseparable from the universal
NB

Kantianism = old rubbish
This idea already exists among the Cartesians—Feuerbach cites Clauberg from 1652. 60

* - blank slate. Ed.

SUMMARY OF FEUERBACH'S BOOK ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF LEIBNIZ
"There is no doubt that this axiom" (that the whole is greater than the part) "owes its certainty not to induction, but to reason, for the sole purpose and function of reason is to generalize the data of the senses, to free us from the tedious labor of repetition, to anticipate, replace, and conserve sensory experience and sensory contemplation. But does reason do this entirely independently, without any basis in sensation? Is one or another individual case, sensibly perceived by me, individual in abstraction? Is it not a qualitatively determined case? But does this quality not contain even a sensible identity of individual cases?... Do I see only leaves, and not trees as well? Is there no sense of identity, sameness, and difference? Are there no differences for my sensory organs between black and white, between day and night, between tree and iron?... Is sensory perception not a necessary confirmation of what is? Is the highest law of thought, the law of identity, not also the law of sensibility, and does this law of thought ultimately rest on the truth of sensory contemplation?"... (193-194).
NB
Leibniz in the "New Essays": "Generality consists in the similarity of individual things to one another, and this similarity is a reality" (Book III, Chapter 3, § 12). "But is this similarity not a sensory truth? Do the beings that reason classifies into one category, one genus, not affect my sensory organs in the same way?... Is there no difference for my sexual sense—a sense that also has great theoretical significance, although it is usually overlooked in the doctrine of the senses"?

well said! *

NB
What is the difference between a woman and a female animal? In what, then, does the difference between reason and sensation or the capacity for sensations consist?
Sensory perception gives the object, reason gives the name for it. There is nothing in reason that is not in sensory perception, but what is actually present in sensory perception is present in reason only nominally, by name. Reason is the highest being, the ruler of the world; but only by name, not in reality. What, then, is a name? It is a distinguishing mark, some striking feature which I make the representative of the object, characterizing the object, to represent it to myself in its totality (195).
well said!
... "Sensation, just like reason, tells me that the whole is greater than the part; but it tells me this not in words, but by examples, for example, that the finger is smaller than the hand" ... (196-197).
... "Therefore, the certainty that the whole is greater than the part, of course, does not depend on sensory experience. But on what, then? On the word: whole. In the proposition: the whole is greater than the part, nothing more is said than what the word: whole says by itself" ... (197).
... "Leibniz, on the contrary, as an idealist or spiritualist, turns the means into the end, the negation of sensibility into the essence of spirit" ... (198).
... "That which is conscious of itself, exists and is, and is called soul. Therefore, we become convinced of the existence of our soul before the existence of our body. Undoubtedly, consciousness is primary; but it is primary only for me, not in itself. From the point of view of my consciousness, I exist because I am conscious of myself; but from the point of view of my body, I am conscious of myself because I exist. Who, then, is right? The body, i.e., nature, or consciousness, i.e., the I? Of course, the I; for can I acknowledge

* - well said! Ed.

SUMMARY OF FEUERBACH'S BOOK ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF LEIBNIZ
myself to be wrong? But am I really able to separate consciousness from my body and think independently?" ... (201).
... "The world is an object of senses and an object of thought" (204).
"In the sensory object, man distinguishes the essence as it is in reality, as it appears as an object of sensory perception, from that which in it is the abstracted, intellectual essence. The former he calls existence or also individual, the latter - essence or species. He defines essence as something necessary and eternal, for even if a certain sensory object disappears from the sensory world, it still remains as an object of thought or representation, while he defines existence as something contingent and transient" ... (205).
... "Leibniz is half a Christian, he is a theist, or a Christian and a naturalist. He limits the goodness and omnipotence of God with wisdom, reason. But this reason is nothing other than a natural science cabinet, a conception of the connection of all parts of nature, the whole of the world. Therefore, he limits his theism with naturalism; he asserts and defends theism by removing it" ... (215).
NB
Page 274 (from the 1847 addition):
"How much has been said about the deceptiveness of the senses, how little about the deceptiveness of language, from which thinking is inseparable! But how crude is the deception of the senses, how refined is the deception of language! How long did the universality of reason, the universality of the Fichteian and Hegelian I, lead me astray, until, finally, with the help of my five senses, I understood for the salvation of my soul that all the difficulties and mysteries of the logos, in the sense of reason, find their resolution in the meaning of the word! For this reason, Gaim's words: 'the critique of reason must turn into the critique of language' seem to me so close in theoretical terms.
As for the opposition between me as a sensing and personal being and me as a thinking being, according to the meaning of this note and the cited dissertation" (by Feuerbach himself) 61 "it boils down to the sharp opposition: in sensation, I appear as singular, in thinking, as universal. However, in sensation, I am no less universal than in thinking I am singular. Consistency in thinking is based only on consistency in
sensation" (274).
... "All human communication is based on the presupposition of the sameness of sensation among people" (274).
"Spinoza and Herbart" (1836) 62. Page 400 ff. Defense of Spinoza against the vulgar attacks of the "moralist" Herbart.
Emphasizes Spinoza's objectivism, etc. NB.
"Relation to Hegel" (1840 and later). Page 417 ff.
Not very clear, fragmentary emphasis, that he was a student of Hegel.
From the remarks:
"What is the dialectic that is in contradiction with the natural emergence and development? What is its necessity?" ... (431).
"Mr. Schelling" (1843) letter to Marx (434 ff.). From the draft. Criticism of Schelling 63.
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