https://vip.twetch.app/t/ffebc01d340318ba88922950045d4f23bc…

2. There must be simple substances, because there are
composites. A composite thing is just a collection of simple
ones that happen to have come together.

1. My topic here will be the monad, which is just a simple
substance. By calling it ‘simple’ I mean that it has no parts,
though it can be a part of something composite.

3. Something that has no parts can’t be extended, can’t have a shape, and can’t be split up. So monads are the true atoms of Nature—the elements out of which everything is made.

4. We don’t have to fear that a monad might fall to pieces; there is no conceivable way it could go out of existence naturally.

5. For the same reason, there is no way for a simple substance to come into existence naturally, for that would involve its being put together, assembled, composed, and a simple substance couldn’t be formed in that way because it has no parts.

6. So we can say that the only way for monads to begin or end—to come into existence or go out of existence—is instantaneously, being created or annihilated all at once.

Composite things, in contrast with that, can begin or end gradually, through the assembling or scattering of their parts.

7. It doesn’t make sense to suppose that a monad might be altered or re-arranged internally by any other created thing.

Within a monad there’s nothing to re-arrange, and there is no conceivable internal motion in it that could be started, steered, sped up, or slowed down, as can happen in a composite thing that has parts that can change in relation to one another.