"Reality cannot be found except in One single source, because of the interconnection of

all things with one another. ... It is a good thing to proceed in order and to establish
propositions (principles). This is the way to gain ground and to progress with certainty. ...
I hold that the mar of a genuine idea is that its possibility can be pro!ed, either a priori
by concei!ing its cause or reason, or a posteriori when experience teaches us that it is a
fact in nature."
"It follows from what we ha!e "ust said, that the natural changes of monads come from an
internal principle, and that change is continual in each one. # $ow this connection of all
created things with each, and of each with all the rest, means that each simple substance
has relations which express all the others, each created monad represents the whole
uni!erse."(%ottfried &eibni', ()*+)
However, lest we seem to equate man and beast too closely, it should
be known that there is an enormous diference between the perception
of humans and beasts. For besides the lowest degree of perception
that is found even in insensible creatures, and (as has been explained
a middle degree which we call sensation and acknowledge in beasts,
there is a certain higher degree which we call thought. !ut thought is
perception "oined with reason, which beasts so far as we can observe
do not have.
,, Reflections on the -ouls of .easts