For the rest, I believe that the monads, from the beginning, are gifted with a self-sustaining strength, through which they are generated into the corporeal world; that is to say, take a bodily shape, live, act, nay even strive--that is to say, would remove themselves from one body into another without the immediate influence of the Principal Monad.

The monads are in perpetual motion--perpetual change, and always place and arrange themselves according to their power and will.

If, now, we regard the world from this point of view, it presents itself to us in the clearest and most excellent manner.

In all spheres of life we see how the principal monad assembles all the subject monads around itself as organs and members.
Thus are nations and states, arts and sciences, fashioned; thus every man creates his own world, and governs it according to his ability; for there is no such thing as free-will, as people commonly imagine, but the monad in man directs what he shall become, and what in regard to----" "That I don't believe," interrupted Mrs.Gunilla; "since, if my soul, or monad, as you would call it, had guided me according to its pleasure, it would have led me to do many wicked things; and if our Lord God had not chastised me, and in his mercy directed me to something that was good--be so good as to let alone my cotton-balls--it would have gone mad enough with my nomadic soul--that I can tell you." "But, your Honour," said Jacobi, "I don't deny at all the influence of a principal monad; on the contrary, I acknowledge that; and it is precisely this influence upon your monad which----" "And I assert," exclaimed she, warming, and again interrupting him, "that we should do nothing that was right if you could establish your nomadic government, instead of the government of our Lord God.

What good could I get from your nomads ?" "Monads," said the Candidate, correcting her.
"And supposing your monads," continued Mrs.Gunilla, "do keep in such perpetual movement, and do arrange themselves so properly, what good will that do me in moments of temptation and need?
It is far wiser and better that I say and believe that our Lord God will guide us according to his wisdom and good, than if I should believe that a heap of your nomads----" "Monads, monads!" exclaimed the Candidate.
"Monads or nomads," answered angrily Mrs.Gunilla, "it is all one--be so good as to let my cotton alone, I want it myself--your nomads may be as magnificent and as mighty as they please, and they may govern themselves, and may live and strive according to their own wisdom; yet I cannot see how the world, for all that, can be in the least the more regular, or even one little grain the more pleasant, to look at.