organ of the Supreme Reason: "Il ne faut point s'imaginer, que les
verites eternelles, etant dependantes de Dieu, sont arbitrages et
dependent de sa volonte." He felt, with Des Cartes, the incompatibility
of thought with extension, considered as an immanent quality of
substance, and he shared with Spinoza the unific propensity which
distinguishes the higher order of philosophic minds. Dualism was an
offence to him. On the other hand, he differed from Spinoza in his
vivid sense of individuality, of personality. The pantheistic idea
of a single, sole being, of which all other beings are mere
modalities, was also and equally an offence to him. He saw well the
illusoriness and unfruitfulness of such a universe as Spinoza dreamed.
He saw it to be a vain imagination, a dream-world, "without form and
void," nowhere blossoming into reality. The philosophy of Leibnitz
is equally remote from that of Des Cartes on the one hand, and from
that of Spinoza on the other. He diverges from the former on the
question of substance, which Des Cartes conceived as consisting of
two kinds, one active (thinking) and one passive (extended), but
which Leibnitz conceives to be all and only active. He explodes
Dualism, and resolves the antithesis of matter and spirit by
positing extension as a continuous act instead of a passive mode,
substance as an active force instead of an inert mass,--matter as
substance appearing, communicating,--as the necessary band and
relation of spirits among themselves. [19]

[Footnote 19: The following passages may serve as illustrations of
these positions:--

"Materia habet de so actum entitativum."--_De Princip. Indiv_.
Coroll. I.