ABSTRACT
Among the great philosophic systems of the seventeenth century, it is in that of Leibniz that the conception of the Chain of Being is most conspicuous, most determinative, and most pervasive. Spinoza had expressed the principle of plenitude in its most uncompromising form and had represented it as necessary in the strict logical sense. The principle of plenitude comes into conflict with certain other dialectical motives which played an important part in Leibniz's thought. The fact that Leibniz had failed to establish any essential difference between his "sufficient reason" and Spinoza's "necessity" was by no means unrecognized in the eighteenth century. Spinoza, as we have seen, appears more interested in the thought of the necessity of the universe than in the thought of its plenitude. Leibniz was genuinely interested in both aspects of this dialectic; but he was also somewhat afraid of the cosmic determinism to which it led him.
