/lit/ - Literature

>And in this respect composite things are analogous to simple ones. In the world of composites, the world of matter, everything is full, which means that all matter is interlinked. If there were empty space, a body might move in it without affecting any other body; but that is not how things stand. In a plenum, any movement must have an effect on distant bodies, the greater the distance the smaller the effect, but always some effect. Here is why. Each body is affected by the bodies that touch it, and feels some effects of everything that happens to them; but also through them it also feels the effects of all the bodies that touch them, and so on, so that such communication extends indefinitely. As a result, each body feels the effects of everything that happens in the universe, so that he who sees everything could read off from each body what is happening everywhere; and, indeed, because he could see in its present state what is distant both in space and in time, he could read also what has happened and what will happen…

>But a soul can read within itself only what is represented there distinctly; it could never bring out all at once everything that is folded into it, because its folds go on to infinity.

>Thus, although each created monad represents the whole universe, it represents more distinctly the body that is exclusively assigned to it, and of which it forms the entelechy. And just as that body expresses the whole universe through the interconnection of all matter in the plenum, the soul also represents the entire universe by representing its particular body.

>We can also say that God the designer satisfies the wishes of God the legislator in every respect, and that sins must therefore bring their own punishment through the natural order—indeed through the mechanical structure of things; and similarly that fine actions will draw their reward through the mechanical doings of bodies, even though that reward can’t and shouldn’t always arrive right away.

the connection to the image here is spurious (i think?). still tho.