Observations placeholder
Leibniz - The source of wisdom and inspiration
Identifier
020567
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
…the seeds of the things we Iearn are within us - the ideas and the eternal truths which arise from them. Since we discover being, the one, substance, action, and the like within ourselves, and since we are conscious of ourselves, we need not wonder that their ideas are within us. The innate concepts of Plato, which he concealed by the term "reminiscence," are therefore by far to be preferred to the blank tablets of Aristotle, Locke, and other recent exoteric philosophers. Since our understanding comes from God and must be regarded as a ray of that sun, we must judge that what is most in conformity with our own understanding is in conformity with divine wisdom.
Because of the divine concourse which continuously confers upon each creature whatever perfection there is in it, the external object of the soul is God alone and in this sense God is to the mind what light is to the eye.