"I a monad!" exclaimed she, in disgust.

"Yes, certainly," replied he, "your Honour, just the same as any other
living creature----"

"But," interrupted she, "I must tell you, dear friend, that I am neither
a monad nor a creature, but a human being--a sinful human being it is
true--but one that God, in any case, created in his own image."

"Yes, certainly, certainly," acceded the Candidate. "I acknowledge a
principal monad, from which all other monads emanate----"

"What!" exclaimed she, "is our Lord God to be a monad also?"

"He may be so designated," said the Candidate, "on account of oneness,
and also to preserve uniformity as to name. For the rest, I believe that
the monads, from the beginning, are gifted with a self-sustaining
strength, through which they are generated into the corporeal world;
that is to say, take a bodily shape, live, act, nay even strive--that is
to say, would remove themselves from one body into another without the
immediate influence of the Principal Monad. The monads are in perpetual
motion--perpetual change, and always place and arrange themselves
according to their power and will. If, now, we regard the world from
this point of view, it presents itself to us in the clearest and most
excellent manner. In all spheres of life we see how the principal monad
assembles all the subject monads around itself as organs and members.
Thus are nations and states, arts and sciences, fashioned; thus every
man creates his own world, and governs it according to his ability; for
there is no such thing as free-will, as people commonly imagine, but the
monad in man directs what he shall become, and what in regard to----"

"That I don't believe," interrupted Mrs. Gunilla; "since, if my soul, or
monad, as you would call it, had guided me according to its pleasure, it
would have led me to do many wicked things; and if our Lord God had not
chastised me, and in his mercy directed me to something that was
good--be so good as to let alone my cotton-balls--it would have gone mad
enough with my nomadic soul--that I can tell you."

"But, your Honour," said Jacobi, "I don't deny at all the influence of a
principal monad; on the contrary, I acknowledge that; and it is
precisely this influence upon your monad which----"

"And I assert," exclaimed she, warming, and again interrupting him,
"that we should do nothing that was right if you could establish your
nomadic government, instead of the government of our Lord G