Stony Brook University

perceived to be the good. 24 However, not every mind possesses inclinations stemming
from principles of wisdom and goodness. Therefore, while the wisest mind always
chooses the best and does it, lesser minds do not always, or even frequently. However, as
Leibniz will later explain, the mind that determines itself by wisdom is most free.
Leibniz’s motivation for speaking of hypothetical necessity in this context, as in
others, is to show that the theologically required doctrines of God’s freedom,
foreknowledge, and pre-ordination do not interfere with human freedom. 25 However, this
is by no means the only relevant point to take from this distinction. What we are after is
God’s moral criterion for creation, and to understand this we must turn for a moment to
some other late texts. First, note that creatures, or rational substances, are bare
possibilities in God’s mind, having free natures that God chooses to actualize, should the
actualization of such creatures result in the creation of the best possible world. Possible
creatures cannot compel themselves into existence; although they do have a certain
striving (exigo) for existence. Leibniz makes this quite interesting point in his wellknown
De Rerum Originatione Radicali (1697):
We must first acknowledge that since something rather than nothing
exists, there is a certain urge for existence or (so to speak) a straining
toward existence in possible things or in possibility or essence itself; in a
word, essence in and of itself strives for existence. Furthermore, it follows
from this that all possibles, that is, everything that expresses essence or
possible reality, strive with equal right [my emphasis] for existence in
proportion to the amount of essence or reality or the degree of perfection
they contain, for perfection is nothing by the amount of essence. (AG
150) 26
Certain complexities we must set aside, such as the correlations among essence,
compossibility, and existence. What is important is the idea that all possible beings strive
with equal right (pari jure) for existence—although not quite equally. This notion of pari
jure may provide some indication of the inherent moral quality of rational substances. All
rational substances have a certain amount moral power, by virtue of being rational
substances. But each strives for existence in proportion to its moral goodness, that is, in
proportion to its contribution to the overall good (common felicity), in proportion to its
contribution to the best possible world. But only God has the power to bring possible
substances into existence. Indeed, God is morally necessitated to do so. To understand
24 This was Leibniz’s “psychophysical” requirement we first encountered in the Elementa.
25 G.7.389: “La necessité Hypothetique est celle, que la supposition ou hypothese de la prevision et
preordination de Dieu impose aux futurs contingens.” . . . G.7.390: “Mais ny cette prescience ny cette
preordination . . . deroger par là à la liberté de ces creatures: ce simple decret du choix, ne changeant point,
mais actualisant seulement leur natures libres qu’il y voyoit dans ses idées.”
26 G.7.303: “Primum agnoscere debemus eo ipso, quod aliquid potius existit quam nihil, aliquam in rebus
possibilibus seu in ipsa possibilitate vel essentia esse exigentiam existentiae, vel (ut sic dicam)
praetensionem ad existendum et, ut verbo complectar, essentiam per se tendere ad existentiam. Unde porro
sequitur, omnia possibilia, seu essentiam vel realitatem possibilem exprimentia, pari jure ad *essentiam
tendere pro quantitate essentiae seu realitatis, vel pro gradu perfectionis quem involvunt; est enim perfectio
nihil aliud quam essentiae quantitas.” *The editors of the English edition (AG) note that essentiam is likely
a mistake and should read existentiam.
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