Full Idea
We cannot say - with complete fidelity to the truth of things - that the same whole continues to exist if a part of it is lost.
Gist of Idea
The same whole ceases to exist if a part is lost
Source
Gottfried Leibniz (New Essays on Human Understanding [1704], 2.27.11)
Book Reference
Leibniz,Gottfried: 'New Essays on Human Understanding', ed/tr. Remnant/Bennett [CUP 1996], p.238
A Reaction
This is the reference Simons 1987:319 gives when he claims that Leibniz accepts mereological essentialism. I think this is mereological necessity of identity, but not what I call 'essentialism'. That has to distinguish essential from non-essential.