Gottfried Leibniz, Monadology: Monadology 61
And compounds are in this respect analogous with [symbolisent avec] simple substances. For all is a plenum (and thus all matter is connected together) and in the plenum every motion has an effect upon distant bodies in proportion to their distance, so that each body not only is affected by those which are in contact with it and in some way feels the effect of everything that happens to them, but also is mediately affected by bodies adjoining those with which it itself is in immediate contact. Wherefore it follows that this inter-communication of things extends to any distance, however great. And consequently every body feels the effect of all that takes place in the universe, so that he who sees all might read in each what is happening everywhere, and even what has happened or shall happen, observing in the present that which is far off as well in time as in place: sympnoia panta, as Hippocrates said. But a soul can read in itself only that which is there represented distinctly; it cannot all at once unroll everything that is enfolded in it, for its complexity is infinite.
Commentary on Monadology 61
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In this passage, Leibniz touches upon a number of significant concepts in Western philosophy and science.
In the first place, his reference to the dictum “sympnoia panta” draws attention to a line of thought in the Stoic tradition that was also adopted by the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius in his Meditations, Book 4, section 40. Along with Plato, Aristotle, and other ancient philosophers, the wisdom of the Stoic tradition was also re-discovered in the West during the Renassiance, to serve as building blocks for the development of Western science in the Enlightenment.
A plenum is the opposite of a vacuum: classical mechanics assumes that matter is more or less uniformly distributed throughout the universe, and that matter can only be modified by direct contact with other matter. Related dictums include “nothing exists in a vacuum” and “Nature abhors a vacuum.” The principle of locality — that matter can only be modified by direct contact with other matter — is closely associated with the presence of a plenum, constituting a central tenet in Western science (along with causality and determinism). When Newton posited a “force” of gravity, the “invisibility” of this force led to skepticism because it seemed to violate the principle of locality.