Stony Brook University

espect to its activity and passivity. 15
There is of course no logical contradiction in being unjust. But for the good person to act
counter to her moral quality is a kind of moral contradiction. It helps to note that this
passage also points, although quite inadequately, to the Aristotelian account of change,
and the relationship of change to moral quality. Potentia (or dynamis) is, roughly
speaking, the movement of a thing (substance) from potency to act. Thus potentia refers
to the possibility of change in a thing (substance). 16 The possibility of change is
proportionate to a thing’s passivity, i.e., to its resistance to change. Therefore, the moral
quality of a rational substance is the quality by virtue of which moral action is possible. A
moral-rational being does not undergo change merely by virtue of its natural power, but
by virtue of its moral power.
The power (potentia) to kill an innocent is found in mere strength
(robusto), not in those who are strong (robusto) and simultaneously good.
For his hands are bound as through a higher power (vi). He cannot
overcome the heart, as the Germans significantly say. 17
Although it is always logically possible that the virtuous will harm the innocent, they
never do.
So far, these formulations seem fairly consonant with the pre-Leibnizian
formulations on moral necessity, but they also resonate well with the later formulations,
as we will increasingly see. As we saw in Chapter Two, Leibniz has some difficulty
explaining how the good person can truly be said to act freely, if she is physically
necessitated to act morally. As the above passage suggests, the good person is incapable
of performing evil acts, by virtue of her moral power. The answer to this difficulty is that
a substance undergoes a change freely or spontaneously as long as it does so from its
internal power. In other words, a substance can and must develop its internal power, and
this is what virtue is: the moderation of the passive power of the soul by means of active
reason. Therefore, if a being is truly going to be free, or free in the most possible way,
then it must develop its internal virtue. This is the main reason why Leibniz in his
criticisms of Pufendorf said that the object of natural right is internal virtue.
15 A.6.1.480-1: “Injustum est qvod absurdum est, qvod contradictionem implicat fieri à viro bono. Qvod
ergo Grotius Ius et Obligationem vocat qvalitates morales, id sic capiendum, esse attributa viri boni in
respectu ad agendum patiendumve. Qvalitas enim est attributum in respectu ad agendum et patiendum.”
16 In relation to this it is important to note the opening paragraph from “On Freedom” in the Nouveaux
essais. “If ‘power’ corresponds to the Latin potentia, it is contrasted with ‘act,’ and the transition from
power to act is ‘change.’ That is what Aristotle means by the word ‘movement,’ when he says that
movement is the act – or perhaps the actualization—of that which has the power to be [Leibniz’s note:
Aristotle, Physique, III, I, 201a10] Power in general, then, can be described as the possibility of change.
But since change, or the actualization of that possibility, is action in one subject and passion in another,
there will be two powers, one active and one passive. The active power can be called ‘faculty,’ and perhaps
the passive one might be called ‘capacity’ or ‘receptivity.’ It is true that active power is sometimes
understood in a fuller sense, in which it comprises not just a mere faculty but also an endeavor. And that is
how I take it in my theorizing about dynamics” (NE 2.21.169).
17 A. 6.1.480: “Potentia occidendi innocentum locum habet in robusto, non in robusto et simul bono,
manibus ei velut superiore qvadam vi ligatis. Er kans nicht übers Herz bringen, uti significanter Germani
loqvuntur.”
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