from You're Simple! Monadology for Children



1. Look at this, then: a thing which has no parts.

2. There are things which have several parts; therefore, we can think of a single part. It's simple.

3. This simple thing which I call a monad cannot be split, neither can it be extended. It has no shape.
Everything that is, is made from these!

4. A monad is always unbitten and is unbreakable. It can't disassemble.

5. Neither can a monad just appear naturally. How can you put together something which only has one
part?

6. A monad can be created spontaneously – poof! – or it can be annihilated. Boom!

7. A monad has no pattern and it is not an engine. It is not open.

8. Monads do have qualities. They jostle and fill up the fullness of the full world.

9. Each monad has a different quality.

10. Every monad is constantly changing. Look, they're doing it now, the fickle little things!

11. A monad is either changed by divine will or from an interior force.

12. Each simple substance also changes individually.

13. This creates a multiplicity of states and relationships.

14. A multitude within a unity is called perception. This is not the same as consciousness. A monad is
not a mind.

15. The internal force which causes change is called appetite. Yum, yum! Appetition moves towards a
new perception.

16. We are but simple substances and we perceive a multiplicity of things in a variegated world.

17. Imagine this: a machine structured to produce thought. Now we walk into it as if it were a mill. 
Don't lean on that cog! Watch out for that lever! The place gets bigger in relative proportions, but
where is perception to be found in this mad machine? Perception is not to be found in a composite
thing. It is not a structure but a simple thing which perceives.

18. Simple substances or created monads contain a certain perfection of self-sufficiency. Let's name
this 'entelechy'.

19. We could call these monads souls, if by soul we mean anything that has appetites and perceptions.
But some souls also possess memory, and so we must distinguish between a mere monad and a monad
proper, with memory.

20. In a dark and dreamless or when we faint at the latest news, we are cut from memory, and we are
mere monads; but the soul recovers, and then it is a monad.

21. But hold your horses! A mere monad still has perceptions. Its every state is a perception – though
that state may be a daze, a craze, or a dizziness. Also imminent death.

22. The present of a monad is pregnant with its future.