1nCnVqgFI

1
;
THE NATURE OF THE MONAD. 69
of a learned and thoughtful Theosophist, Mr. C. H. A. Bjerregaard, on
the subject. In an excellent paper, "On the Elementals, the Elementary
Spirits, and the Relationship between Them and Human Beings,"
read by him before the Aryan Theosophical Society of New York, Mr.
Bjerregaard thus distinctly formulates his opinion:
To Spinoza, substance is dead and inactive, but to Leibnitz's penetrating powers
of mind everything is living activity and active energy. In holding this view, he
comes infinitely nearer the Orient than any other thinker of his day, or after him.
His discovery that a« active energy forms the essence of substance is a principle that
places him in direct relationship to the Seers of the East.*
And the lecturer proceeds to show that to Leibnitz Atoms and
Elements are Centres of Force, or rather "spiritual beings whose very
nature it is to act," for the
Elementary particles are vital forces, not acting mechanically, but from an
internal principle. They are incorporeal spiritual units ["substantial," however,
but not "immaterial" in our sense] inaccessible to all change from without . . .
[and] indestruevJbi.e by any external force. Leibnitz' monads differ from atoms
in the following particulars, which are very important for us to remember, otherwise
we shall not be able to see the difference between Elementals and mere
matter. Atoms are not distinguished from each other, they are qualitatively alike
but one monad differs from every other monad qualitatively; and everyone is a
peculiar world to itself. Not so with the atoms; they are absolutely alike quantitatively
and qualitatively, and possess no individuality of their own.t Again, the
atoms [molecules, rather] of materialistic philosophy can be considered as extended
and divisible, while the monads are mere "metaphysical points" and indivisible.
Finally, and this is a point where these monads of Leibnitz closely resemble the
Elementals of mystic philosophy, these monads are representative beings. Everj^
monad reflects every other. Every monad is a living mirror of the Universe within
its own sphere. And mark this, for upon it depends the power possessed by these
monads, and upon it depends the work they can do for us; in mirroring the world,
the monads are not mere passive reflective agents, but spofitajieously self-active; they
produce the images spontaneously, as the soul does a dream. In every monad,
therefore, the adept may read everything, even the future.
Every monad—or Elemental—is
a looking-glass that can speak.
• The Path, I. 10, p. 297.
-r Leibnitz was an aiio/w/^" Idealist in maintaining that "material atoms are contrary to reason."
{Syslimc Nouveau, Erdmann, p. 126, col. 2.) For him Matter was a simple representation of the
Monad, whether human or atomic. Monads, he thought (as do we), are everywhere. Thus the
human soul is a Monad, and every cell in the human body has its Monad, as has every cell in animal,
vegetable, and even in the so-called inorganic bodies. His Atoms are the molecules of modern
Science, and his Monads those simple atoms that Materialistic Science takes on faith, though it will
never succeed in interviewing them—except in imagination. But Leibnitz, is rather contradictory in
his views about Monads. He speaks of his "Metaphysical Points" and '•Formal Atoms," at one
time as r