Stony Brook University

This notion of “complaint” will be put to important use in the Meditation as a criterion
for just actions, as we will see. But at this point it is important to note again this notion of
spontaneity: God acts justly from the spontaneity of his excellent nature, from his own
nature, not from the compulsion of a superior. To act spontaneously does not mean to act
freely, in the sense of being undetermined by reasons or causes, but rather to be
determined by the right reasons, as they originate in one’s own nature. This leads again to
the idea that the efficient cause of obligation is the divine understanding. God acts
spontaneously in conformity with the eternal truths found within his understanding. What
these truths are like is explained as the above passage continues:
Neither the norm of conduct itself, nor the essence of the just, depends on
his free decision, but rather on eternal truths, objects of the divine
intellect, which [are constituted], so to speak, by the essence of divinity
itself; and it is right that our author is reproached by theologians when he
maintains the contrary; because, I believe, he had not seen the wicked
consequences which arise from it. Justice, indeed, would not be an
essential attribute of God, if he himself established [right] and justice by
his free will. And, indeed, justice follows certain [laws] of equality and of
proportion [which are] no less founded in the immutable nature of things,
and in the divine ideas, than are the principles of arithmetic and of
geometry. So that no one will maintain that justice and goodness originate
in the divine will, without at the same time maintaining that truth
originates in it as well. (RP 71) 38
This passage largely constitutes Leibniz’s definitive answer to Pufendorf: the efficient
cause of natural right is the ideas of right in the divine mind. He does not say what the
norm of conduct is, nor what these ideas are specifically (and it is difficult to know what
the “the immutable nature of things” means). 39 However, we do know that the
mathematical notions of “equality” and “proportion” are essential to his theory of right,
as I will show. These notions correspond to the first and second degrees of right, and to
the negative and positive versions of the Golden Rule. The most we can conclude at this
point is that the efficient cause or causes of obligation are the ideas of right, which are
found in God’s understanding, in the “region of ideas.” Also, as the last sentence of the
38 D 4.280: “Neque ipsa norma actionum aut natura justi, a libero ejus decreto, sed ab aeternis veritatibus
divino intellectui objectis pendent; quae ipsa, ut sic dicam, divina essentia constituuntur; meritoque a
theologis auctor reprehensus est, quando contrarium defendit; credo, quod pravas consequentias non
perspexisset. Neque enim justitia essentiale Dei attributum erit, si ipse jus & justitiam arbitrio suo condidit.
Et vero justitia servat quasdam aequalitatis proportionalitatisque leges, non minus in natura rerum
immutabili divinisque fundatas ideis, quam sunt principia arithmeticae & geometriae. Neque adeo justitiam
aut bonitatem quisquam divini arbitrii esse defendet, nisi qui & veritatem.” Thanks to Professor Baum for
correcting Riley’s translation, especially where Riley had “. . . objects of the divine intellect, which
constitute, so to speak, the essence of divinity itself.”
39 This phrase, “the immutable nature of things,” is frequent in Leibniz; but frankly I can make little sense
of it. For Leibniz, all natures are immutable, human nature, animal nature, unicorn nature, etc. If the nature
of something is changed, then it is no longer that thing. What he seems to be referring to are immutable
objects and notions, such as mathematical objects. And he wants to say that justice has an immutable
meaning, one that does not change through circumstance or time.
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