Stony Brook University

caritas, i.e., ‘brotherly love’, ‘love of neighbor’ or simply ‘benevolence,’ from sexual
love (venereus), identifying the latter with a kind of consumption: “The desire for union
is not love, to love what one would like to devour. 147 The appetite for venereus is akin to
an appetite for food. As commonly said, we “love” a meal which delights our tastes; in
the same manner we say that the wolf “loves” the lamb. 148 But this is not of course the
relevant sort of love. Therefore “we distinguish sexual love (venereus) as a completely
different kind from the true.” 149 Real love, or the relevant love, is then caritas, the term
he will use from now on to refer to the sort of love that is the nature of justice, although
he sometimes mixes it with pleasure and amor. In the following passage he speaks of
three types of love, in a brief and unusual burst of eloquence, as if he has just made a
great discovery.
Love of neighbor and Justice cannot be handled apart. Neither Moses nor
Christ, neither the apostles nor the early Christians have honored another
measure of Justice more than love. Nothing the Platonists, the mystical
theologians, nothing that pious men of all nations and regions celebrate
more, nothing they cry out and urge for more, than Love. Likewise I, after
treating countless concepts of justice, have finally come to rest in this
excellent discovery, both universal and reciprocal. 150
This passage reflects Leibniz’s syncretic proclivities, by connecting Judeo-Christian love,
platonic love Epicurean pleasure—and everyone else—with his own epagogic discovery.
By using dilectione along with caritas, it may appear that he equates pleasure with true
love. However, it is very important to keep in mind that he always thinks of pleasure and
delight as the motus primum, that is, the first movement or conatus (endeavor) within a
substance, whose end is perfection. 151 But perfection, moral perfection at least, is possible
only when pleasure is regulated by wisdom and virtue. Wisdom includes both practical
and theoretical knowledge. But these issues cannot be dealt with here. The present point
is that much of the demonstrative character of justice can be found in the true nature of
love: “From this definition [of love, i.e., taking delight in the felicity of others] can be
demonstrated many splendid theorems of greatest importance in theology and morals”
(A.6.1.482). Therefore, love is both the beginning and the end (telos) of moral activity,
but it can be the end only when it is perfected by reason and wisdom.
(2.1) Felicity is the (2.1a) optimal (2.1b) state of a person. 152 This corresponds
with one of Leibniz’s basic metaphysical assumptions, that there is an infinite
progression of goods. Thus the optimum condition consists not in reaching an optimal
147 A.6.1.466 and 482: “Appetitus unionis non est amor. Lieben das man vor liebe fressen möchte.
148 Busche notes (fn 176 p. 475) that Leibniz is likely alluding to Plato’s discussion of love in Phaedrus
(241 c-d) where the wolf is depicted as a glutton for appetite.
149 A.6.1.466: “Amor ergo venereus toto genere differt à vero.”
150 A.6.1.481: “Caritas et Iustitiae inseparabilis tractatio. Non Moses aliam, non Christus, non Apostoli, non
veteres Christiani, Iustitiae regulam dedere, nisi in dilectione. Nihil Platonici, nihil Theologi Mystici, nihil
omnium gentium partiumqve homines Pii celebrant magis, inclamant, urgent, qvam Amorem. Ego qvoqve
post tentatas innumerabiles Iustitiae notiones in hac tandem conqvievi, hanc primam reperi, et universalem,
et reciprocantem.”
151 This is made clear in a much later passage in the Nouveaux essais Ch. 21 §36.
152 A.6.1.466 and 483: “Felicitas est status personae optimus.”
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