Leibnitz makes the basic property of ‘natural things’ not ‘extension’ (‘extensio’) as Descartes did, but rather a persistent ‘effort’ (conatus) that is present not only in ‘living things’ but even in lifeless matter and which is “a force striving for change”. This force counterbalances the ‘conserving force’ of Descartes and Newton, a force opposing change, or ‘force of inertia’ (‘vis inertiae’). 
        Barrett, in Irrational Man, says something very similar: “A crucial step beyond Descartes was taken when Leibnitz declared that material substances are not inert, as Descartes thought, but endowed them with a fundamental dynamism…a certain drive (appetitio) by which they move forward in time” (Irrational Man p. 203). Or, as Lee Smolin puts it in Time Reborn “To be human is to imagine what is not, to seek beyond the limits, to test the constraints, to explore and rush and tumble across the intimidating boundaries of our known world.”
        But Barrett is wrong to confine conatus to ‘forward movement in time’. I interpret Leibnitz’s ‘basic force’ in a Nietzschean sense as a ‘natural inclination to go beyond’, to ‘exceed’. To attribute intelligence, let alone ‘foresight’, to this basic drive is probably one step too far. But the same does not go for ‘will’ which Schopenhauer explicitly attributed to the universe (or ‘Nature’) indeed made it its central feature. And, as it happens, Homo sapiens is the species that has ‘gone beyond’ all other species inasmuch as it has acquired exact knowledge of the natural world and with this knowledge untold power. Homo sapiens has triumphed by exercising ‘will’, chiefly (though not exclusively) the ‘will to power’, so it  would  seem that there exists  a kind of ‘natural alignment’ — or ‘negative harmony’– between mankind and that of Nature herself. (Paradoxically, this would make mankind the offspring whose character most nearly resembles that of its progenitress precisely because it has ‘stepped outside’ its own prescribed limits.) The downside, of course, is that Homo sapiens is the ‘dissatisfied species’ par excellence, something of which the Buddha never ceases to remind us. But like most, if not all, religions, Buddhism is anti-life; for the frantic striving born of dissatisfaction is the driving force of ‘progress’ — but not of course (necessarily) progress in the ethical sphere and certainly not in the ‘happiness’ sphere. On the latter point, Rousseau may well have been right, i.e. the more ‘civilization’, the more unhappiness — the reason why the wealthiest and most advanced countries technologically are the greatest consumers of opioids. “RARUM EST ENIM UT SATIS SE QUISQUE VEREATUR” — « It is extremely rare to come across anyone who is content with his current life ».
        Note that this supposed natural alignment of mankind with the universe, or with Nature, by way of  ‘Will’ is hardly a cause for optimism (though it may well be the reason why our self-harming species will nonetheless survive despite the odds). Harari amongst others argues that Sapiens has finally achieved ‘godlike power’ but has not ‘the slightest idea what it really wants’. But there’s no guarantee that the universe has any idea either. Sebastian Hayes