Preface to the New Essays

(Originally written June 2, 2007 in Book 14)

Preface to the New Essays (1703-1705)
G.W. Leibniz

The senses are necessary for all actual knowledge, but they are not sufficient to five us all of it because they merely provide particular or individual truths.

Proof for general or eternal truths cannot be acquired by the senses because no matter how many instances of particular truths are combined, their totality will never equal the sum of an eternal truth. The proof of such eternal truths (like those of mathematics, morality, logic and metaphysics) must come a priori or innately.

The ideas in us are innate. They are natural inclinations, dispositions, habits or potentialities.

Insensible perceptions are perceptions too minute or too similar for us to notice and yet effect us so greatly.

These insensible perceptions rule out the notion of the soul as tabula rasa, souls without thoughts, substances without action and void space.

All spiritualized beings, all souls, all simple created substances are always joined to a body and souls are never completely separated from the body.

God can do what goes beyond our understanding. "There may be inconceivable mysteries in the articles of faith" (Leibniz, 61).