The Questions Concerning Liberty, Necessity, And Chance, fol. 184
Machine transcription. Not an edition. Errors are expected: about 8% character error rate on Latin and French lines, higher on German. Mean line confidence on this page: 0.93.
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The machine reads it as
- (184)
- eingent Agenes, and that perhaps che beauty of the WNortd
- doch require ic, bue like a Mremd Com, which afcer Me
- hath siven her milk casts ic domn wich her fooc, in thecon-
- cluson Pcell him chac nererthelels chey areall necestarr.
- Ttistrue, that Isay some are Firee Acents, and some C’on-
- tingent; neverthelessthermay be all necessary. Por accord-
- ins to the significations ol the mords Necessary. Firce, and Con-
- tincent, ihe distinction is n morebut this; of Necessary A-
- sents, some are Necessary, and some are Agents; and of A-
- sents, some are livins creatures, and some are inanimate; Which
- mordsare improper, but the meanine ofthem is this; men call ne-
- cessary Acents suchas they euom tobe necessary, and contincent
- Agents such inanimate thines as they lenom not hether they
- morte necessarily or no, and by free Acents, men whom theytenom
- not whetherthey ort necessarily or no. Al which confusion a-
- riseth fromthat presumpenons men tabe for granted, that that
- IS AOE Whith they KNOW nOE.
- Neicher do P approre his definition ot Concingents.
- ehac chier are luchr agenes as workwe know nochow.
- Thereason is because it non la follon that many necessary A-
- ctions Bould be contingent, and mans continsent Actions ne-
- cessary. But that mhich follometh from it really is nomore but
- this: That many necessary Actions mauldbe sueh as me lenom
- not tobe necessari, and many Actions which e lexom not to be
- nece (sary, may ret be necessary, moich is a truth. But theBi-
- MoP defineth Contingents thus: AII chinss which may bedone
- and may noc bedone, martrippen, or may noc haxpen by
- reason oEche Indetermination, or nccidental concurrence of
- etre C auleS. By hich definition C ontincent is nothins. or it is
- the same that LSay it is. For, there is nothins ean bedonc and
- not be donc, nothins can happen ana not happenby reason of the
- Indetermination or accident al concurrence of the canses. Itmay
- be done or not done for ouchi helenomes, and happen or noi hap-
- pen for ans determination he perceaveth; and that is my defi-
- nition. But that the indetermination can mahe it happen ex ro:
- happen, is absurd: for indetermination matethit equally eo
- happenor not to happen: and therefore both; mhich is a con-
- tradiction. Therefore indetermination doth nothins, and nhat
- soc ver canses do, is necessary.
Cite
The Questions Concerning Liberty, Necessity, And Chance, fol. 184. Machine transcription, not an edition: Leibniz Legible (model FoNDUE-GD_v2_ft_Leibniz, run 74). https://leibnizlegible.com/page/1030877386:0184?run=74