Definition of "monads" [monads]

• Plural form of monad. (noun)

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• "In order to explain how, after an indefinite lapse of ages, so many of the lowest grades of animal or plant still abounded, he imagined that the germs or rudiments of living things, which he called monads, were continually coming into the world and that there were different kinds of these monads for each primary division of the animal and vegetable kingdoms."
• "This was the assumption of the great German philosopher, Leibnitz, who carried the panspermic theory so far as to accept the more fanciful one of "monads" -- those invisible, ideal, and purely speculative units of Plato, which go to make up the entire universe, extending even to the ultimate elements, or elements of elements."
• "Anyhow, Leibniz holds to the view that all matter is composed of itty-bitty things called monads, and each monad is distinct."