Chapter XX (6)

122. This will appear more evident, and the exaggerated notions of the school of Hobbes as to the absolute necessity of language to the mutual relations of mankind will be checked by considering what was not so well understood in his age as at present, the intellectual capacities of those who are born deaf, and the resources which they are able to employ. It can hardly be questioned, but that a number of families thrown together in this unfortunate situation, without other intercourse, could by the exercise of their natural reason, as well as the domestic and social affections, constitute themselves into a sort of commonwealth, at least as regular as that of ants and bees; and if the want of language would deprive them of many advantages of polity, it would also secure them from much fraud and conspiracy. But those whom we have known to want the use of speech, have also wanted the sense of hearing, and have thus been shut out from many assistances to the reasoning faculties, which our hypothesis need not exclude. The fair supposition is that of a number of persons merely dumb, and although they would not have laws or learning, it does not seem impossible they might maintain at least a patriarchal, if not a political, society for many generations. Upon the lowest supposition, they could not be inferior to the Chimpanzees, who are said to live in communities in the forests of Angola.

|Use of names.|

123. The succession of conceptions in the mind depending wholly on that they had one to another when produced by the senses, they cannot be recalled at our choice and the need we have of them, “but as it chanceth us to hear and see such things as shall bring them to our mind. Hence, brutes are unable to call what they want to mind, and often, though they hide food, do not know where to find it. But man has the power to set up marks or sensible objects, and remember thereby somewhat past. The most eminent of these are names of articulate sounds, by which we recall some conception of things to which we give those names; as the appellation white bringeth to remembrance the quality of such objects as produce that colour or conception in us. It is by names that we are capable of science, as for instance that of number: for beasts cannot number for want of words, and do not miss one or two out of their young, nor could a man without repeating orally or mentally the words of number, know how many pieces of money may be before him.”[277] We have here another assumption, that the numbering faculty is not stronger in man than in brutes, and also that the former could not have found out how to divide a heap of coins into parcels without the use of words of number. The experiment might be tried with a deaf and dumb child.

[277] Hum. Nat., c. 5.

|Names universal not realities.|

124. Of names some are proper, and some common to many or universal, there being nothing in the world universal but names, for the things named are every one of them individual and singular. “One universal name is imposed on many things for their similitude in some quality or other accidents; and whereas a proper name bringeth to mind one thing only, universals recall any one of those many.”[278] “The universality of one name to many things hath been the cause that men think the things are themselves universal, and so seriously contend that besides Peter and John, and all the rest of the men that are, have been, or shall be in the world, there is yet something else that we call man--viz., man in general, deceiving themselves by taking the universal or general appellation for the thing it signifieth.[279] For if one should desire the painter to make him the picture of a man, which is as much as to say, of a man in general, he meaneth no more, but that the painter should chuse what man he pleaseth to draw, which must needs be some of them that are, or have been, or may be, none of which are universal. But when he would have him to draw the picture of the king, or any particular person, he limiteth the painter to that one person he chuseth. It is plain, therefore, that there is nothing universal but names, which are therefore called indefinite.”[280]

[278] Lev. c. 4.

[279] “An universal,” he says in his Logic, “is not a name of
many things collectively, but of each taken separately
(sigillatim sumptorum). Man is not the name of the human species,
in general, but of each single man, Peter, John and the rest,
separately. Therefore, this universal name is not the name of any
thing existing in nature, nor of any idea or phantasm formed in
the mind, but always of some word or name. Thus, when an animal,
or a stone, or a ghost (spectrum) or anything else is called
universal, we are not to understand that any man or stone or
anything else was, or is, or can be an universal, but only that
these words animal, stone, and the like are universal names, that
is, names common to many things, and the conceptions
corresponding to them in the mind are the images and phantasms of
single animals or other things. And therefore we do not need, in
order to understand what is meant by an universal, any other
faculty than that of imagination, by which we remember that such
words have excited the conception in our minds sometimes of one
particular thing, sometimes of another.” Cap. 2, § 9. Imagination
and memory are used by Hobbes almost as synonyms.

[280] Hum. Nat., c. 5.

|How imposed.|

125. “By this imposition of names, some of larger, some of stricter signification, we turn the reckoning of the consequences of things imagined in the mind into a reckoning of the consequences of appellations.”[281] Hence he thinks that though a man born deaf and dumb might by meditation know that the angles of one triangle are equal to two right ones, he could not, on seeing another triangle of different shape, infer the same without a similar process. But by the help of words, after having observed the equality is not consequent on anything peculiar to one triangle, but on the number of sides and angles which is common to all, he registers his discovery in a proposition. This is surely to confound the antecedent process of reasoning with what he calls the registry, which follows it. The instance, however, is not happily chosen, and Hobbes has conceded the whole point in question, by admitting that the truth of the proposition could be observed, which cannot require the use of words.[282] He expresses the next sentence with more felicity, “And thus the consequence found in one particular comes to be registered and remembered as an universal rule, and discharges our mental reckoning of time and place; and delivers us from all labour of the mind saving the first, and makes that which was found true here and now to be true in all times and places.”[283]

[281] It may deserve to be remarked that Hobbes himself,
nominalist as he was, did not limit reasoning to comparison of
proposition, as some later writers have been inclined to do, and
as in his objections to Descartes, he might seem to do himself.
This may be inferred from the sentence quoted in the text, and
more expressly, though not quite perspicuously, from a passage in
the Computatio, sive Logica, his Latin treatise published after
the Leviathan. Quomodo autem animo _sine verbis tacita
cogitatione ratiocinando addere et subtrahere solemus_ uno aut
altero exemplo ostendendum est. Si quis ergo e longinquo aliquid
obscurè videat, etsi nulla sint imposita vocabula, habet tamen
ejus rei ideam eandem propter quam impositis nunc vocabulis dicit
eam rem esse corpus. Postquam autem propius accesserit,
videritque eandem rem certo quodam modo nunc uno, nunc alio in
loco esse, habebit ejusdem ideam novam, propter quam nunc talem
rem _animatam_ vocat, &c., p. 2.

[282] The demonstration of the thirty-second proposition of
Euclid could leave no one in doubt whether this property were
common to all triangles, after it had been proved in a single
instance. It is said, however, to be recorded by an ancient
writer, that this discovery was first made as to equilateral,
afterwards as to isosceles, and lastly as to other triangles.
Stewart’s philosophy of Human Mind, vol. ii., chap., iv., sect. 2
The mode of proof must have been different from that of Euclid.
And this might possibly lead us to suspect the truth of the
tradition. For if the equality of the angles of a triangle to two
right angles admitted of any _elementary_ demonstration, such as
might occur in the infancy of geometry, without making use of the
property of parallel lines, assumed in the twelfth axiom of
Euclid, the difficulties consequent on that assumption would
readily be evaded. See the Note on Euclid, i. 29. in Playfair,
who has given a demonstration of his own, but one which involves
the idea of motion rather more than was usual with the Greeks in
their elementary propositions.

[283] Lev.

|The subject continued.|

126. The equivocal use of names makes it often difficult to recover those conceptions for which they were designed “not only in the language of others, wherein we are to consider the drift and occasion and contexture of the speech, as well as the words themselves, but in our own discourse, which, being derived from the custom and common use of speech, representeth unto us not our own conceptions. It is, therefore, a great ability in a man, out of the words, contexture and other circumstances of language to deliver himself from equivocation, and to find out the true meaning of what is said; and this is it we call understanding.”[284] If speech be peculiar to man, as for aught I know it is, then is understanding peculiar to him also; understanding being nothing else but conception caused by speech.”[285] This definition is arbitrary and not conformable to the usual sense. “True and false,” he observes afterwards, “are attributes of speech not of things; where speech is not, there is neither truth nor falsehood, though there may be error. Hence, as truth consists in the right ordering of names in our affirmations, a man that seeks precise truth hath need to remember what every word he uses stands for and place it accordingly. In geometry, the only science hitherto known, men begin by definitions. And every man who aspires to true knowledge, should examine the definitions of former authors, and either correct them or make them anew. For the errors of definitions multiply themselves, according as the reckoning proceeds, and lead men into absurdities, which at last they see, but cannot avoid without reckoning anew from the beginning in which lies the foundation of their errors.... In the right definition of names, lies the first use of speech, which is the acquisition of science. And in wrong or no definitions lies the first abuse from which proceed all false and senseless tenets, which make those men that take their instruction from the authority of books, and not from their own meditation, to be as much below the condition of ignorant men, as men endued with true science are above it. For between true science and erroneous doctrine, ignorance is in the middle. Words are wise men’s counters, they do but reckon by them; but they are the money of fools.”[286]

[284] Hum. Nat.

[285] Lev.

[286] Lev.

|Names differently imposed.|

127. “The names of such things as affect us, that is, which please and displease us, because all men be not alike affected with the same thing, nor the same man at all times, are in the common discourse of men of inconstant signification. For seeing all names are imposed to signify our conceptions, and all our affections are but conceptions, when we conceive the same thoughts differently, we can hardly avoid different naming of them. For though the nature of that we conceive be the same, yet the diversity of our reception of it, in respect of different constitutions of body and prejudices of opinion, gives everything a tincture of our different passions. And therefore, in reasoning, a man must take heed of words, which, besides the signification of what we imagine of their nature, have a signification also of the nature, disposition and interest of the speaker; such as are the names of virtues and vices; for one man calleth wisdom what another calleth fear, and one cruelty, what another justice; one prodigality, what another magnanimity, and one gravity what another stupidity, &c. And therefore such names can never be true grounds of any ratiocination. No more can metaphors and tropes of speech, but these are less dangerous, because they profess their inconstancy, which the other do not.”[287] Thus ends this chapter of the Leviathan, which, with the corresponding one in the Treatise of Human Nature, are, notwithstanding what appear to be some erroneous principles, as full, perhaps, of deep and original thoughts as any other pages of equal length on the art of reasoning and philosophy of language. Many have borrowed from Hobbes without naming him; and in fact he is the founder of the nominalist school in England. He may probably have conversed with Bacon on these subjects; we see much of that master’s style of illustration. But as Bacon was sometimes too excursive to sift particulars, so Hobbes has sometimes wanted a comprehensive view.

[287] Lev.

|Knowledge.|

128. “There are,” to proceed with Hobbes, “two kinds of knowledge; the one, sense, or knowledge original, and remembrance of the same; the other, science, or knowledge of the truth of propositions, derived from understanding. Both are but experience, one of things from without, the other from the proper use of words in language, and experience being but remembrance, all knowledge is remembrance. Knowledge implies two things, truth and evidence; the latter is the concomitance of a man’s conception with the words that signify such conception in the act of ratiocination.” If a man does not annex a meaning to his words, his conclusions are not evident to him. “Evidence is to truth, as the sap to the tree, which, so far as it creepeth along with the body and branches, keepeth them alive; when it forsaketh them they die; for this evidence, which is meaning with our words, is the life of truth.” “Science is evidence of truth, from some beginning or principle of sense. The first principle of knowledge is that we have such and such conceptions; the second that we have thus and thus named the things whereof they are conceptions; the third is that we have joined those names in such manner as to make true propositions; the fourth and last is that we have joined these propositions in such a manner as they be concluding, and the truth of the conclusion said to be known.”[288]

[288] Hum. Nat., c. 6.

|Reasoning.|

129. Reasoning is the addition or subtraction of parcels. “In whatever matter there is room for addition and subtraction, there is room for reason; and where these have no place, then reason has nothing at all to do.”[289] This is neither as perspicuously expressed, nor as satisfactorily illustrated, as is usual with Hobbes; but it is true that all syllogistic reasoning is dependent upon quantity alone, and consequently upon that which is capable of addition and subtraction. This seems not to have been clearly perceived by some writers of the old Aristotelian school, or perhaps by some others, who, as far as I can judge, have a notion that the relation of a genus to a species, or a predicate to its subject, considered merely as to syllogism or deductive reasoning, is something different from that of a whole to its parts; which would deprive that logic of its chief boast, axiomatic evidence. But, as this would appear too dry to some readers, I shall pursue it farther in a note.[290]

[289] Lev. c. 5.

[290] Dugald Stewart (Elements of Philosophy, &c. vol. ii., ch.
ii., sect. 2) has treated this theory of Hobbes on reasoning, as
well as that of Condillac, which seems much the same, with great
scorn, as “too puerile to admit of (i.e. require) refutation.” I
do not myself think the language of Hobbes either here, or as
quoted by Stewart from his Latin treatise on Logic, so
perspicuous as usual. But I cannot help being of opinion that he
is substantially right. For surely, when we assert that A is B,
we assert that all things which fall under the class B, taken
collectively, comprehend A, or that B = A + X: B being here put,
it is to be observed, not for the _res prædicata_ itself, but for
the concrete, _de quibus prædicandum est_. I mention this,
because this elliptical use of the word predicate seems to have
occasioned some confusion in writers on logic. The predicate
strictly taken, being an attribute or quality, cannot be said to
include or contain the subject. But to return, when we say B = A
+ X, or B - X = A, since we do not compare, in such a
proposition, as is here supposed, A with X, we only mean that A =
A, or that a certain part of B is the same as itself. Again, in a
particular affirmative, Some A is B, we assert that part of A, or
A - Y is contained in B, or that B may be expressed by [A - Y]
+ X. So also when we say, Some A is not B, we equally divide the
class or genus B into A - Y and X, or assert that B = [A - Y] +
X; but, in this case, the subject is no longer A - Y, but the
remainder, or other part of A, namely, Y; and this is not found
in either term of the predicate. Finally, in the universal
negative, No A (neither [A - Y] nor Y) is B, the [A - Y] of
the predicate vanishes or has no value, and B becomes equal to X,
which is incapable of measurement with A, and consequently with
either A - Y or Y, which make up A. Now if we combine this with
another proposition, in order to form a syllogism, and say that C
is A, we find, as before, that A = C + Z; and substituting this
value of A in the former proposition, it appears that B = C + Z +
X. Then, in the conclusion, we have, C is B; that is C is a part
of C + Z + X. And the same in the three other cases or moods of
the figure. This seems to be, in plainer terms, what Hobbes means
by addition or subtraction of parcels, and what Condillac means
by rather a lax expression, that equations and propositions are
at bottom the same, or, as he phrases it better, “l’evidence de
raison consiste uniquement dans l’identité.” If we add to this,
as he probably intended, non-identity, as a condition of all
negative conclusions, it seems to be no more than is necessarily
involved in the fundamental principle of syllogism, the _dictum
de omni et nullo_; which may be thus reduced to its shortest
terms; “Whatever can be divided into parts, includes all those
parts, add nothing else.” This is not limited to mathematical
quantity, but includes everything which admits of more or less.
Hobbes has a good passage in his Logic on this; Non putandum est
computationi, id est, ratiocinationi in numeris tantum locum
esse, tanquam homo a cæteris animantibus, quod censuisse narratur
Pythagoras, sola numerandi facultate distinctus esset; nam et
magnitudo magnitudini, corpus corpori, motus motui, tempus
tempori, gradus qualitatis gradui, actio actioni, conceptus
conceptui, proportio proportioni, oratio orationi, nomen nomini,
in quibus omne philosophiæ genus continetur, adjici adimique
potest.

But it does not follow by any means that we should assent to the
strange passages quoted by Stewart from Condillac and Diderot,
which reduce all _knowledge_ to identical propositions. Even
in geometry, where the objects are strictly magnitudes, the
countless variety in which their relations may be exhibited
constitutes the riches of that inexhaustible science; and in
moral or physical propositions, the relation of quantity between
the subject and predicate, as concretes, which enables them to be
compared, though it is the sole foundation of all _general
deductive reasoning_ or syllogism, has nothing to do with the
other properties or relations, of which we obtain a knowledge by
means of that comparison. In mathematical reasoning, we infer as
to quantity through the medium of quantity; in other reasoning,
we use the same medium, but our inference is as to truths which
do not lie within that category. Thus, in the hackneyed instance,
All men are mortal; that is, mortal creatures include men and
something more, it is absurd to assert, that we only know that
men are men. It is true that our knowledge of the truth of the
proposition comes by the help of this comparison of men in the
subject with men in the predicate; but the very nature of the
proposition discovers a constant relation between the individuals
of the human species and that mortality which is predicated of
them along with others; and it is to this, not in an identical
equation, as Diderot seems to have thought, that our
_knowledge_ consists.

The remarks of Stewart’s friend. M. Prevost of Geneva, on the
principle of identity as the basis of mathematical science, and
which the former has candidly subjoined to his own volume, appear
to me very satisfactory. Stewart comes to admit that the dispute
is nearly verbal; but we cannot say that he originally treated it
as such; and the principle itself, both as applied to geometry
and to logic, is, in my opinion, of some importance to the
clearness of our conceptions as to those sciences. It may be
added, that Stewart’s objection to the principle of identity as
the basis of geometrical reasoning is less forcible in its
application to syllogism. He is willing to admit that magnitudes
capable of coincidence by immediate superposition may be reckoned
identical, but scruples to apply such a word to those which are
dissimilar in figure, as the rectangles of the means and extremes
of four proportional lines. Neither one nor the other are, in
fact, identical as real quantities, the former being necessarily
conceived to differ from each other by position in space, as much
as the latter; so that the expression he quotes from Aristotle,
εν τουτοις ἡ ισοτης ἑνοτης [en toutois hê isotês henotês], or any
similar one of modern mathematicians, can only refer to the
abstract magnitude of their areas, which being divisible into the
same number of equal parts, they are called the same. And there
seems no real difference in this respect between two circles of
equal radii and two such rectangles as are supposed above, the
identity of their magnitudes being a distinct truth, independent
of any consideration either of their figure or their position.
But however this may be, the identity of the subject with part of
the predicate in an affirmative proposition is never fictitious,
but real. It means that the persons or things in the one are
strictly the same beings with the persons or things to which they
are compared in the other, though, through some difference of
relations, or other circumstance, they are expressed in different
language. It is needless to give examples, as all those who can
read this note at all will know how to find them.

I will here take the liberty to remark, though not closely
connected with the present subject, that Archbishop Whately seems
not quite right in saying (Elements of Logic, p. 46), that in
affirmative propositions the predicate is _never_
distributed. Besides the numerous instances where this is, in
point of fact, the case, all which he excludes, there are many in
which it is involved in the very form of the proposition. Such
are all those which assert identity or equality, and such also
are all those particular affirmations which have previously been
_converted_ from universals. Of the first sort are all the
theorems in geometry, asserting an equality of magnitude or
ratios, in which the subject and predicate may always change
places. It is true that in the instance given in the work quoted,
that equilateral triangles are equiangular, the converse requires
a separate proof, and so in many similar cases. But in these the
predicate is not distributed by the form of the proposition; they
assert no quality of magnitude.

The position, that where such equality is affirmed, the predicate
is not _logically_ distributed, would lead to the
consequence that it can only be _converted_ into a
particular affirmation. Thus, after proving that the square of
the hypothenuse, in all right-angled triangles, is equal to those
of the sides, we could only infer that the squares of the sides
are _sometimes_ equal to that of the hypothenuse, which
could not be maintained without rendering the rules, of logic
ridiculous. The most general mode of considering the question, is
to say, as we have done above, that, in an universal affirmative,
the predicate B (that is, the class of which B is predicated), is
composed of A the subject, and X, an unknown remainder. But if,
by the very nature of the proposition, we perceive that X is
nothing, or has no value, it is plain that the subject measures
the entire predicate, and vice versâ, the predicate measures the
subject; in other words, each is taken universally, or
distributed.

|False reasoning.|

130. A man may reckon without the use of words in particular things, as in conjecturing from the sight of anything what is likely to follow; and if he reckons wrong, it is error. But in reasoning on general words, to fall on a false inference is not error, though often so called, but absurdity.[291] “If a man should talk to me of a round quadrangle, or accidents of bread in cheese, or immaterial substances, or of a free subject, a free will, or any free, but free from being hindered by opposition, I should not say he were in error, but that his words were without meaning, that is to say, absurd;” Some of these propositions, it will occur, are intelligible in a reasonable sense, and not contradictory, except by means of an arbitrary definition which he who employs them does not admit. It will be observed here, as we have done before, that Hobbes does not confine reckoning, or reasoning, to universals, or even to words.

[291] Lev. c. 5.

|Its frequency.|

131. Man has the exclusive privilege of forming general theorems. But this privilege is allayed by another, that is, by the privilege of absurdity, to which no living creature is subject, but man only. And of men those are of all most subject to it, that profess philosophy.... For there is not one that begins his ratiocination from the definitions or explications of the names they are to use, which is a method used only in geometry, whose conclusions have thereby been made indisputable. He then enumerates seven causes of absurd conclusions; the first of which is the want of definitions, the others are erroneous imposition of names. If we can avoid these errors, it is not easy to fall into absurdity (by which he of course only means any wrong conclusion) except perhaps by the length of a reasoning. “For all men,” he says, “by nature reason alike, and well, when they have good principles. Hence, it appears that reason is not as sense and memory born with us, nor gotten by experience only, as prudence is, but attained by industry, in apt imposing of names, and in getting a good and orderly method of proceeding from the elements to assertions, and so to syllogisms. Children are not endued with reason at all till they have attained the use of speech, but are called reasonable creatures, for the possibility of having the use of reason hereafter. And reasoning serves the generality of mankind very little, though with their natural prudence without science they are in better condition than those who reason ill themselves, or trust those who have done so.”[292] It has been observed by Buhle, that Hobbes had more respect for the Aristotelian forms of logic than his master Bacon. He has in fact written a short treatise, in his Elementa Philosophiæ, on the subject; observing however therein, that a true logic will be sooner learned by attending to geometrical demonstrations than by drudging over the rules of syllogism, as children learn to walk not by precept but by habit.[293]

[292] Id. ibid.

[293] Citius multo veram logicam discunt qui mathematicorum
demonstrationibus, quam qui logicorum syllogizandi præceptis
legendis tempus conterunt, haud aliter quam parvuli pueri gressum
formare discunt non præceptis sed sæpe gradiendo. C. iv., p. 30.
Atque hæc sufficiunt, (he says afterwards) de syllogismo, qui est
tanquam gressus philosophiæ; nam et quantum necesse est ad
cognoscendum unde vim suam habeat omnis argumentatio legitima,
tantum diximus; et omnia accumulare quæ dici possunt, æque
superfluum esset ac si quis ut dixi puerulo ad gradiendum
præcepta dare velit; acquiritur enim ratiocinandi ars non
præceptis sed usu et lectione eorum librorum in quibus omnia
severis demonstrationibus transiguntur. C. v., p. 35.

|Knowledge of fact not derived from reasoning.|

132. “No discourse whatever,” he says truly in the seventh chapter of the Leviathan, “can end in absolute knowledge of fact past or to come. For as to the knowledge of fact, it is originally sense; and ever after memory. And for the knowledge of consequence, which I have said before, is called science, it is not absolute but conditional. No man can know by discourse that this or that is, has been, or will be, which is to know absolutely; but only that if this is, that is; if this has been, that has been; if this shall be, that shall be; which is to know conditionally, and that not the consequence of one thing to another, but of one name of a thing to another name of the same thing. And therefore when the discourse is put into speech and begins with the definitions of words, and proceeds by connexion of the same into general affirmations, and of those again into syllogisms, the end or last sum is called the conclusion, and the thought of the mind by it signified is that conditional knowledge of the consequence of words which is commonly called science. But if the first ground of such discourse be not definitions; or if definitions be not rightly joined together in syllogisms, then the end or conclusion is again opinion, namely, of the truth of somewhat said, though sometimes in absurd and senseless words, without possibility of being understood.”[294]

[294] Lev. c. 7.

|Belief.|

133. “Belief which is the admitting of propositions upon trust, in many cases is no less free from doubt than perfect and manifest knowledge; for as there is nothing whereof there is not some cause, so when there is doubt, there must be some cause thereof conceived. Now there be many things which we receive from the report of others, of which it is impossible to imagine any cause of doubt; for what can be opposed against the consent of all men, in things they can know and have no cause to report otherwise than they are, such as is great part of our histories, unless a man would say that all the world had conspired to destroy him?”[295] Whatever we believe on the authority of the speaker, he is the object of our faith. Consequently, when we believe that the Scriptures are the word of God, having no immediate revelation from God himself, our belief, faith, and trust is in the church, whose word we take and acquiesce therein. Hence, all we believe on the authority of men, whether they be sent from God or not, is faith in men only.[296] We have no certain knowledge of the truth of Scripture, but trust the holy men of God’s church succeeding one another from the time of those who saw the wondrous works of God Almighty in the flesh. And as we believe the Scriptures to be the word of God on the authority of the church, the interpretation of the Scripture in case of controversy ought to be trusted to the church rather than private opinion.[297]

[295] Hum. Nat. c. 6.

[296] Lev. c. 7.

[297] Lev. c. 9.

|Chart of science.|

134. The ninth chapter of the Leviathan contains a synoptical chart of human science or “knowledge of consequences,” also called philosophy. He divides it into natural and civil, the former into consequences from accidents common to all bodies, quantity and motion, and those from qualities, otherwise called physics. The first includes astronomy, mechanics, architecture, as well as mathematics. The second he distinguishes into consequences from qualities of bodies transient, or meteorology, and from those of bodies permanent, such as the stars, the atmosphere, or terrestrial bodies. The last are divided again into those without sense, and those with sense; and these into animals and men. In the consequences from the qualities of animals generally he reckons optics and music; in those from men we find ethics, poetry, rhetoric, and logic. These altogether constitute the first great head of natural philosophy. In the second, or civil philosophy, he includes nothing but the rights and duties of sovereigns and their subjects. This chart of human knowledge is one of the worst that has been propounded, and falls much below that of Bacon.[298]

[298] Hum. Nat., c. 11.

|Analysis of passions.|

135. This is the substance of the philosophy of Hobbes, so far as it relates to the intellectual faculties, and especially to that of reasoning. In the seventh and two following chapters of the treatise on Human Nature, in the ninth and tenth of the Leviathan, he proceeds to the analysis of the passions. The motion in some internal substance of the head, if it does not stop there, producing mere conceptions, proceeds to the heart, helping or hindering the vital motions, which he distinguishes from the voluntary, exciting in us pleasant or painful affections, called passions. We are solicited by these to draw near to that which pleases us, and the contrary. Hence, pleasure, love, appetite, desire, are divers names for divers considerations of the same thing. As all conceptions we have immediately by the sense are delight or pain or appetite or fear, so are all the imaginations after sense. But as they are weaker imaginations, so are they also weaker pleasures, or weaker pains.[299] All delight is appetite and presupposes a further end. There is no utmost end in this world, for while we live we have desires, and desire presupposes a further end. We are not, therefore, to wonder that men desire more, the more they possess; for felicity, by which we mean continual delight, consists not in having prospered, but in prospering.[300] Each passion, being, as he fancies, a continuation of the motion which gives rise to a peculiar conception, is associated with it. They all, except such as are immediately connected with sense, consist in the conception of a power to produce some effect. To honour a man, is to conceive that he has an excess of power over some one with whom he is compared; hence, qualities indicative of power, and actions significant of it are honourable; riches are honoured as signs of power, and nobility is honourable, as a sign of power in ancestors.[301]

[299] Hum. Nat., c. 7.

[300] Id. Lev., c. 11.

[301] Hum. Nat., c. 8.

|Good and evil relative terms.|

136. “The constitution of man’s body is in perpetual mutation, and hence it is impossible that all the same things should always cause in him the same appetites and aversions; much less can all men consent in the desire of any one object. But whatsoever is the object of any man’s appetite or desire, that is it, which he for his part calls good, and the object of his hate and aversion, evil, or of his contempt, vile and inconsiderable. For these words of good, evil, and contemptible, are ever used with relation to the person using them; there being nothing simply and absolutely so; nor any common rule of good and evil, to be taken from the nature of the objects themselves, but from the person of the man, where there is no commonwealth, or in a commonwealth from the person that represents us, or from an arbitrator or judge, whom men disagreeing shall by consent set up, and make his sentence the rule thereof.”[302]

[302] Lev. c., 6.

|His paradoxes.|

137. In prosecuting this analysis all the passions are resolved into self-love, the pleasure we take in our own power, the pain we suffer in wanting it. Some of his explications are very forced. Thus weeping is said to be from a sense of our want of power. And here comes one of his strange paradoxes. “Men are apt to weep that prosecute revenge, when the revenge is suddenly stopped or frustrated by the repentance of their adversary; _and such are the tears of reconciliation_.”[303] So resolute was he to resort to anything the most preposterous, rather than admit a moral feeling in human nature. His account of laughter is better known, and perhaps more probable, though not explaining the whole of the case. After justly observing that whatsoever it be that moves laughter, it must be new and unexpected, he defines it to be “a sudden glory arising from a sudden conception of some eminency in ourselves, by comparison with the infirmity of others, or with our own formerly, for men laugh at the follies of themselves past.” It might be objected, that those are most prone to laughter, who have least of this glorying in themselves, or undervaluing of their neighbours.

[303] Hum. Nat., c. 9. Lev., c. 6 and 10.

|His notion of love.|

138. “There is a great difference between the desire of a man when indefinite, and the same desire limited to one person, and this is that love which is the great theme of poets. But notwithstanding their praises, it must be defined by the word need; for it is a conception a man hath of his need of that one person desired.”[304] “There is yet another passion, sometimes called love, but more properly good-will or charity. There can be no greater argument to a man of his own power than to find himself able not only to accomplish his own desires, but also to assist other men in theirs; and this is that conception wherein consists charity. In which first is contained that natural affection of parents towards their children, which the Greeks call στοργη [storgê], as also that affection wherewith men seek to assist those that adhere unto them. But the affection wherewith men many times bestow their benefits on strangers is not to be called charity, but either contract, whereby they seek to purchase friendship, or fear which makes them to purchase peace.”[305] This is equally contrary to notorious truth, there being neither fear nor contract in generosity towards strangers. It is, however, not so extravagant as a subsequent position, that in beholding the danger of a ship in a tempest, though there is pity, which is grief, yet “the delight in our own security is so far predominant, that men usually are content in such a case to be spectators of the misery of their friends.”[306]

[304] Hum. Nat., c. 9.

[305] Id. ibid.

[306] Hum. Nat., c. 9. This is an exaggeration of some well-known
lines of Lucretius, which are themselves exaggerated.

|Curiosity.|

139. As knowledge begins from experience, new experience is the beginning of new knowledge. Whatever, therefore, happens new to a man, gives him the hope of knowing somewhat he knew not before. This appetite of knowledge is curiosity. It is peculiar to man; for beasts never regard new things except to discern how far they may be useful, while man looks for the cause and beginning of all he sees.[307] This attribute of curiosity seems rather hastily denied to beasts. And as men, he says, are always seeking new knowledge, so are they always deriving some new gratification. There is no such thing as perpetual tranquility of mind while we live here, because life itself is but motion, and can never be without desire, nor without fear, no more than without sense. “What kind of felicity God hath ordained to them that devoutly honour him, a man shall no sooner know than enjoy, being joys that now are as incomprehensible, as the word of schoolmen, beatifical vision, is unintelligible.”[308]

[307] Id. ibid.

[308] Lev., c. 6 and c. 11.

|Difference of intellectual capacities.|

140. From the consideration of the passions, Hobbes advances to inquire what are the causes of the difference in the intellectual capacities and dispositions of men.[309] Their bodily senses are nearly alike, whence he precipitately infers there can be no great difference in the brain. Yet men differ much in their bodily constitution, whence he derives the principal differences in their minds; some being addicted to sensual pleasures are less curious as to knowledge, or ambitious as to power. This is called dullness, and proceeds from the appetite of bodily delight. The contrary to this is a quick ranging of mind accompanied with curiosity in comparing things that come into it, either as to unexpected similitude, in which fancy consists, or dissimilitude in things appearing the same, which is properly called judgment; “for to judge is nothing else, but to distinguish and discern. And both fancy and judgment are commonly comprehended under the name of wit, which seems to be a tenuity and agility of spirits, contrary to that restiness of the spirits supposed in those who are dull.”[310]

[309] Hum. Nat., c. 10.

[310] Hum. Nat.

141. We call it levity, when the mind is easily diverted, and the discourse is parenthetical; and this proceeds from curiosity with too much equality and indifference; for when all things make equal impression and delight, they equally throng to be expressed. A different fault is indocibility, or difficulty of being taught; which must arise from a false opinion that men know already the truth of what is called in question; for certainly they are not otherwise so unequal in capacity as not to discern the difference of what is proved and what is not, and therefore if the minds of men were all of white paper, they would all most equally be disposed to acknowledge whatever should be in right method, and by right ratiocination delivered to them. But when men have once acquiesced in untrue opinions, and registered them as authentical records in their minds, it is no less impossible to speak intelligibly to such men, than to write legibly on a paper already scribbled over. The immediate cause therefore of indocibility is prejudice, and of prejudice false opinion of our own knowledge.[311]

[311] Hum. Nat.

|Wit and fancy.|

142. Intellectual virtues are such abilities as go by the name of a good wit, which may be natural or acquired. “By natural wit,” says Hobbes, “I mean not that which a man hath from his birth, for that is nothing else but sense; wherein men differ so little from one another and from brute beasts, as it is not to be reckoned among virtues. But I mean that wit which is gotten by use only and experience, without method, culture or instruction, and consists chiefly in celerity of imagining and steady direction. And the difference in this quickness is caused by that of men’s passions that love and dislike some one thing, some another, and therefore some men’s thoughts run one way, some another; and are held to, and observe differently the things that pass through their imagination.” Fancy is not praised without judgment and discretion, which is properly a discerning of times, places, and persons; but judgment and discretion is commended for itself without fancy: without steadiness and direction to some end, a great fancy is one kind of madness, such as they have who lose themselves in long digressions and parentheses. If the defect of discretion be apparent, how extravagant soever the fancy be, the whole discourse will be taken for a want of wit.[312]

[312] Lev., c. 8.

|Differences in the passions.|

|Madness.|

143. The causes of the difference of wits are in the passions; and the difference of passions proceeds partly from the different constitution of the body and partly from different education. Those passions are chiefly the desire of power, riches, knowledge, or honour; all which may be reduced to the first, for riches, knowledge, and honour are but several sorts of power. He who has no great passion for any of these, though he may be so far a good man as to be free from giving offence, yet cannot possibly have either a great fancy or much judgment. To have weak passions is dullness, to have passions indifferently for everything giddiness and distraction, to have stronger passions for anything than others have is madness. Madness may be the excess of many passions; and the passions themselves, when they lead to evil, are degrees of it. He seems to have had some glimpse of Butler’s hypothesis as to the madness of a whole people. “What argument for madness can there be greater, than to clamour, strike, and throw stones at our best friends? Yet this is somewhat less than such a multitude will do. For they will clamour, fight against, and destroy those by whom all their lifetime before they have been protected, and secured from injury. And if this be madness in the multitude, it is the same in every particular man.”[313]

[313] Id.

|Unmeaning language.|

144. There is a fault in some men’s habit of discoursing which may be reckoned a sort of madness, which is when they speak words with no signification at all. “And this is incident to none but those that converse in questions of matters incomprehensible as the schoolmen, or in questions of abstruse philosophy. The common sort of men seldom speak insignificantly, and are therefore by those other egregious persons counted idiots. But to be assured their words are without anything correspondent to them in the mind, there would need some examples; which if any man require let him take a schoolman into his hands, and see if he can translate any one chapter concerning any difficult point as the Trinity, the Deity, the nature of Christ, transubstantiation, free will, &c., into any of the modern tongues, so as to make the same intelligible, or into any tolerable Latin, such as they were acquainted with, that lived when the Latin tongue was vulgar.” And after quoting some words from Suarez, he adds: “When men write whole volumes of such stuff, are they not mad, or intend to make others so?”[314]

[314] Lev.

|Manners.|

145. The eleventh chapter of the Leviathan, on manners, by which he means those qualities of mankind which concern their living together in peace and unity, is full of Hobbes’s caustic remarks on human nature. Often acute, but always severe, he ascribes overmuch to a deliberate and calculating selfishness. Thus, the reverence of antiquity is referred to “the contention men have with the living, not with the dead, to these ascribing more than due that they may obscure the glory of the other.” Thus “to have received from one to whom we think ourselves equal, greater benefits than we can hope to requite, disposes to counterfeit love, but really to secret hatred, and puts a man into the estate of a desperate debtor, that in declining the sight of his creditor, tacitly wishes him where he might never see him more. For benefits oblige, and obligation is thraldom; and unrequitable obligation perpetual thraldom, which is to one’s equal hateful.” He owns, however, that to have received benefits from a superior, disposes us to love him; and so it does where we can hope to requite even an equal. If these maxims have a certain basis of truth they have at least the fault of those of Rochefoucault; they are made too generally characteristic of mankind.

|Ignorances and prejudice.|

146. Ignorance of the signification of words disposes men to take on trust not only the truth they know not, but also errors and nonsense. For neither can be detected without a perfect understanding of words. “But ignorance of the causes and original constitution of right, equity, law and justice disposes a man to make custom and example the rule of his actions, in such manner as to think that unjust which it has been the custom to punish, and that just, of the impunity and approbation of which they can produce an example, or, as the lawyers which only use this false measure of justice barbarously call it, a precedent.” “Men appeal from custom to reason and from reason to custom as it serves their turn, receding from custom when their interest requires it, and setting themselves against reason, as oft as reason is against them; which is the cause that the doctrine of right and wrong is perpetually disputed both by the pen and the sword; whereas the doctrine of lines and figures is not so, because men care not in that subject what is truth, as it is a thing that crosses no man’s ambition, profit, or lust. For I doubt not, but if it had been a thing contrary to any man’s right of dominion, or to the interest of men that have dominion, that the three angles of a triangle should be equal to two angles of a square, that doctrine should have been if not disputed, yet by the burning of all books of geometry, suppressed, as far as he whom it concerned was able.”[315] This excellent piece of satire has been often quoted, and sometimes copied, and does not exaggerate the pertinacity of mankind in resisting the evidence of truth, when it thwarts the interests and passions of any particular sect or community. In the earlier part of the paragraph it seems not so easy to reconcile what Hobbes has said with his general notions of right and justice; since, if these resolve themselves, as is his theory into mere force, there can be little appeal to reason, or to anything else than custom and precedent, which are commonly the exponents of power.

[315] 1 Lev., c. 11.

|His theory of religion.|

147. In the conclusion of this chapter of the Leviathan as well as in the next, he dwells more on the nature of religion than he had done in the former treatise, and so as to subject himself to the imputation of absolute atheism, or at least of a denial of most attributes which we assign to the Deity. Curiosity about causes, he says, led men to search out one after the other, till they came to this necessary conclusion, that there is some eternal cause which men call God. But they have no more idea of his nature, than a blind man has of fire, though he knows that there is something that warms him. So by the visible things of this world and their admirable order, a man may conceive there is a cause of them, which men call God, and yet not have an idea or image of him in his mind. And they that make little inquiry into the natural causes of things, are inclined to feign several kinds of powers invisible and to stand in awe of their own imaginations. And this fear of things invisible is the natural seed of that which every one in himself calleth religion, and in them that worship or fear that power otherwise than they do, superstition.

148. As God is incomprehensible, it follows that we can have no conception or image of the Deity; and consequently all his attributes signify our inability or defect of power to conceive anything concerning his nature, and not any conception of the same, excepting only this, that there is a God. Men that by their own meditation arrive at the acknowledgment of one infinite, omnipotent, and eternal God, chuse rather to confess this is incomprehensible and above their understanding, than to define his nature by spirit incorporeal, and then confess their definition to be unintelligible.[316] For concerning such spirits he holds that it is not possible by natural means only to come to the knowledge of so much as that there are such things.[317]

[316] Lev., c. 12.

[317] Hum. Nat., c. 11.

|Its supposed sources.|