sponse to environment, and modelling themselves on
environment. They must all mutually reflect environment or they would not
be representations; but they must also exist as themselves and in their own
right or there would be no environment for them mutually to represent.
Since the world is infinitely various, each representor must have its own
distinct character or nature, as our minds have: that is to say, it must
represent in its own individual way; and all these endlessly various
representations must be so constituted as to form a mutually reflecting
harmony. Considered as a representation, each monadical existence simply
reflects the universe after its own manner. But considered as something to
be represented by the others, it is a self-existent mental life, or world
of ideas. Now when we are considering the fact of representation, that
which is to be represented comes first and the representation follows upon
it. Thus in considering the Leibnitian universe, we must begin with the[27]
monads as self-existent mental lives, or worlds of ideas; their
representation of one another comes second. Nothing surely, then, but
omnipotent creative wisdom could have pre-established between so many
distinct given mental worlds that harmony which constitutes their mutual
representation.

Our common-sense pluralistic thinking escapes from the need of the
pre-established harmony by distinguishing what we are from what we do. Let
the world be made up of a plurality of agents in a 'loose' order, with room
to manoeuvre and to adjust themselves to one another. Then, by good luck or
good management, through friction and disaster, by trial and error, by
accident or invention, they may work out for themselves a harmony of
_action_. There is no need for divine preordaining here. But on Leibniz's
view what the monads do is to represent, and what they are is
representation; there is no ultimate distinction between what they are and
what they do: all that they do belongs to what they are. The whole system
of action in each monad, which fits with such infinite complexity the
system of action in each other monad, is precisely the existence of that
monad, and apart from it the monad is not. The monads do not _achieve_ a
harmony, they _are_ a harmony, and therefore they are pre-established in
harmony.

Leibniz denied that he invoked God to intervene in nature, or that there
was anything arbitrary or artificial about his physical theology. He was