Quiz: The Monadology

All 30 questions. A perfect score earns the gold medal; 80% earns silver.

1. How, in §47, do created monads have their birth? Through a single act of emanation at the start of time Through the union of matter and form Through continual fulgurations of the Divinity Through the division of a world-soul
2. Who, according to §48, translated “entelechies” as perfectihabiae? Cicero, in the Tusculans Hermolaus Barbarus Marsilio Ficino of Florence Saint Thomas Aquinas
3. What does §15 call the activity that produces passage from one perception to another? Fulguration Appetition Entelechy Apperception
4. How does §81 sum up the system of pre-established harmony? Souls move bodies and bodies affect souls directly Bodies alone are real and souls are their effects God moves bodies on every occasion that souls will Bodies act as if there were no souls, and souls as if there were no bodies
5. How, in §64, do natural machines differ from human ones? They are machines even in their smallest parts, to infinity They are made of finer metals They need no maker They never wear out
6. Where, according to §38, must the final reason of things lie? In the infinite series of contingent things In a necessary substance, called God In the human understanding In matter and motion
7. What image does §57 use for the monads’ different views of one universe? A song sung by many voices A face in many mirrors A town seen from various sides A map drawn at different scales
8. According to §19, which monads deserve the name of “souls”? All monads whatever, since every one perceives Only those monads joined to large organic bodies Those with distinct perception and memory Only human minds capable of reasoning
9. What fault does §14 find in the Cartesians? They hold that matter thinks They deny that God created the world They treat perceptions of which we are not conscious as non-existent They make animals more rational than men
10. What does §18 call the monads, because of their self-sufficiency? Spiritual atoms Little suns Incorporeal automata Living mirrors of God
11. Whom does §46 name as holding that eternal truths depend on God’s will? Spinoza and Hobbes Locke and Newton Descartes and Poiret Malebranche and Arnauld
12. How, according to §6, can a monad begin or end? Gradually, through growth and decay By the combination and separation of parts Only by creation and annihilation Through other monads
13. Whose doctrine of accidents wandering outside their substances does §7 reject? The Cartesians’ “animal spirits” in the nerves The Stoics’ “seminal reasons” in matter Newton’s “active principles” The Scholastics’ “sensible species”
14. According to §80, what did Descartes fail to know? That the soul is immortal That the total direction in matter is also conserved That matter is infinitely divisible That animals have souls
15. On which two great principles are our reasonings grounded (§§31–32)? Experience and authority Identity and causality Continuity and plenitude Contradiction and sufficient reason
16. What experience does §20 give of a state in which the soul resembles a bare monad? A swoon or dreamless sleep Deep mathematical reflection Intense and prolonged bodily pain Prayer in a state of ecstasy
17. How does Leibniz define a “simple” substance in §1? Without change Without a body Without qualities Without parts
18. What does §3 call the monads? The smallest particles of matter The real atoms of nature The shadows of the divine ideas The organs of the world-soul
19. What does §9 assert about any two beings in nature? They differ only in quantity They differ only in their position in space and time Any two may be exactly alike in all their inner qualities No two are perfectly alike; each differs internally
20. Why, according to §2, must there be simple substances? Because there are compounds Because the senses perceive simple qualities Because God, the source of all things, is simple Because space must be made of empty points
21. What image does Leibniz use in §7 for the impossibility of outside influence on a monad? Monads are islands Monads have no windows Monads are locked rooms without keys Monads are sealed jars
22. In the thought experiment of §17, what would we find on entering a thinking machine enlarged to the size of a mill? A single simple substance at the centre A small soul seated among the wheels and directing them Nothing at all, since a machine cannot be enlarged so far Only parts working on one another, never a perception
23. What does the totality of all spirits compose, according to §85? The City of God The world-soul of the Platonists The mystical body of Christ The kingdom of nature
24. What does §72 deny while allowing metamorphosis? The existence of animal souls The resurrection of the body Metempsychosis, the transmigration of souls The growth of bodies
25. Which two kinds of truth does §33 distinguish? Truths of reasoning and truths of fact Truths of faith and truths of reason Eternal and temporal truths of revelation Analytic and moral truths
26. Which article of Bayle’s Dictionary does Leibniz cite in §16? “Manichees” “Spinoza” “Zeno of Elea” “Rorarius”
27. How does §22 describe the present state of a simple substance? Its present is big with its future Its present cancels its past Its present is wholly undetermined Its present depends on other monads
28. What example of animal memory does §26 give? Horses that find their own way home in the dark Bees that remember which flowers bear nectar Birds that return each spring to the same nests Dogs that run from a stick that once hurt them
29. In §28, who expects daylight tomorrow on rational grounds rather than empirically? The theologian trusting providence The farmer who keeps a calendar The astronomer The physician of the rational school
30. What does §71 compare all bodies to? Statues of fixed marble Rivers, with parts entering and leaving continually Clocks wound by God Houses rented by souls

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