ON THE WRITINGS OF HOBBES
In the following Essays I shall attempt to give some account of the rise and progress of modern metaphysics, to state the opinions of the principal writers who have treated on the subject, from the time of Lord Bacon to the present day, and to examine the arguments by which they are supported. In the first place, it will be my object to shew what the real conclusions of the most celebrated authors were, and the steps by which they arrived at them: to trace the connexion or point out the difference between their several systems, as well as to inquire into the peculiar bias and turn of their minds, and in what their true strength or weakness lay. This will undoubtedly be best done by an immediate reference to their works whenever the nature of the subject admits of it, or whenever their mode of reasoning is not so loose and desultory as to render the quotation of particular passages a useless as well as endless labour. In the History of English Philosophy, of which I published a prospectus some time ago, I intended to have gone regularly through with all the writers of any considerable note who fell within the limits of my plan, and to have given a detailed analysis of their several subjects and arguments. But this would lead to much greater length and minuteness of inquiry than seems consistent with my present object, and would besides, I am afraid, prove (what Hobbes, speaking of these subjects in general, calls) ‘but dry discourse.’ To avoid this as much as possible, I shall pass over all those writers who have not been distinguished either by the boldness of their opinions, or the logical precision of their arguments. Indeed I shall confine my attention more particularly to those who have made themselves conspicuous by deviating from the beaten track, and who have struck out some original discovery or brilliant paradox; whose metaphysical systems trench the closest on morality, or whose speculations, by the interest as well as novelty attached to them, have become topics of general conversation.
Secondly, besides stating the opinions of others, one principal object which I shall have in view will be to act as judge or umpire between them, to distinguish, as far as I am able, the boundaries of true and false philosophy, and to try if I cannot lay the foundation of a system more conformable to reason and experience, and, in its practical results at least, approaching nearer to the common sense of mankind, than the one which has been generally received by the most knowing persons who have attended to such subjects within the last century; I mean the material or modern philosophy, as it has been called. According to this philosophy, as I understand it, all thought is to be resolved into sensation, all morality into the love of pleasure, and all action into mechanical impulse. These three propositions, taken together, embrace almost every question relating to the human mind, and in their different ramifications and intersections form a net, not unlike that used by the enchanters of old, which, whosoever has once thrown over him, will find all his efforts to escape vain, and his attempts to reason freely on any subject in which his own nature is concerned, baffled and confounded in every direction.
This system, which first rose at the suggestion of Lord Bacon, on the ruins of the school-philosophy, has been gradually growing up to its present height ever since, from a wrong interpretation of the word experience, confining it to a knowledge of things without us; whereas it in fact includes all knowledge relating to objects either within or out of the mind, of which we have any direct and positive evidence. We only know that we ourselves exist, the most certain of all truths, from the experience of what passes within ourselves. Strictly speaking, all other facts of which we are not immediately conscious, are so in a secondary and subordinate sense only. Physical experience is indeed the foundation and the test of that part of philosophy which relates to physical objects: further, physical analogy is the only rule by which we can extend and apply our immediate knowledge, or infer the effects to be produced by the different objects around us. But to say that physical experiment is either the test or source or guide of that other part of philosophy which relates to our internal perceptions, that we are to look to external nature for the form, the substance, the colour, the very life and being of whatever exists in our minds, or that we can only infer the laws which regulate the phenomena of the mind from those which regulate the phenomena of matter, is to confound two things entirely distinct. Our knowledge of mental phenomena from consciousness, reflection, or observation of their correspondent signs in others is the true basis of metaphysical inquiry, as the knowledge of facts, commonly so called, is the only solid basis of natural philosophy.
To say that the operations of the mind and the operations of matter are in reality the same, so that we may always make the one exponents of the other, is to assume the very point in dispute, not only without any evidence, but in defiance of every appearance to the contrary. Lord Bacon was undoubtedly a great man, indeed one of the greatest that have adorned this or any other country. He was a man of a clear and active spirit, of a most fertile genius, of vast designs, of general knowledge, and of profound wisdom. He united the powers of imagination and understanding in a greater degree than almost any other writer. He was one of the strongest instances of those men, who by the rare privilege of their nature are at once poets and philosophers, and see equally into both worlds. The schoolmen and their followers attended to nothing but essences and species, to laboured analyses and artificial deductions. They seem to have alike disregarded both kinds of experience, that relating to external objects, and that relating to the observation of our own internal feelings. From the imperfect state of knowledge, they had not a sufficient number of facts to guide them in their experimental researches; and intoxicated with the novelty of their vain distinctions, taught by rote, they would be tempted to despise the clearest and most obvious suggestions of their own minds. Subtile, restless, and self-sufficient, they thought that truth was only made to be disputed about, and existed no where but in their demonstrations and syllogisms. Hence arose their ‘logomachy’—their everlasting word-fights, their sharp debates, their captious, bootless controversies.
As Lord Bacon expresses it, ‘they were made fierce with dark keeping,’ signifying that their angry and unintelligible contests with one another were owing to their not having any distinct objects to engage their attention. They built altogether on their own whims and fancies, and buoyed up by their specific levity, they mounted in their airy disputations in endless flights and circles, clamouring like birds of prey, till they equally lost sight of truth and nature. This great man therefore intended an essential service to philosophy, in wishing to recall the attention to facts and ‘experience’ which had been almost entirely neglected; and thus, by incorporating the abstract with the concrete, and general reasoning with individual observation, to give to our conclusions that solidity and firmness which they must otherwise always want. He did nothing but insist on the necessity of ‘experience,’ more particularly in natural science; and from the wider field that is open to it there, as well as the prodigious success it has met with, this latter application of the word, in which it is tantamount to physical experiment, has so far engrossed the whole of our attention, that mind has for a good while past been in some danger of being overlaid by matter. We run from one error into another; and as we were wrong at first, so in altering our course, we have turned about to the opposite extreme. We despised ‘experience’ altogether before; now we would have nothing but ‘experience,’ and that of the grossest kind.
We have, it is true, gained much by not consulting the suggestions of our own minds in questions where they inform us of nothing; namely, in the particular laws and phenomena of the natural world; and we have hastily concluded, reversing the rule, that the best way to arrive at the knowledge of ourselves also, was to lay aside the dictates of our own consciousness, thoughts, and feelings, as deceitful and insufficient guides, though they are the only means by which we can obtain the least light upon the subject. We seem to have resigned the natural use of our understandings, and to have given up our own existence as a nonentity. We look for our thoughts and the distinguishing properties of our minds in some image of them in matter, as we look to see our faces in a glass. We no longer decide physical problems by logical dilemmas, but we decide questions of logic by the evidences of the senses. Instead of putting our reason and invention to the rack indifferently on all questions, whether we have any previous knowledge of them or not, we have adopted the easier method of suspending the use of our faculties altogether, and settling tedious controversies by means of ‘four champions fierce—hot, cold, moist and dry,’ who with a few more of the retainers and hangers-on of matter determine all questions relating to the nature of man and the limits of the human understanding very learnedly. That which we seek however, namely, the nature of the mind and the laws by which we think, feel, and act, we must discover in the mind itself or not at all. The mind has laws, powers, and principles of its own, and is not the mere puppet of matter. This general bias in favour of mechanical reasoning and physical experiment, which was the consequence of the previous total neglect of them in matters where they were strictly necessary, was strengthened by the powerful aid of Hobbes, who was indeed the father of the modern philosophy. His strong mind and body appear to have resisted all impressions but those which were derived from the downright blows of matter: all his ideas seemed to lie like substances in his brain: what was not a solid, tangible, distinct, palpable object was to him nothing. The external image pressed so close upon his mind that it destroyed the power of consciousness, and left no room for attention to any thing but itself. He was by nature a materialist. Locke assisted greatly in giving popularity to the same scheme, as well by espousing many of Hobbes’s metaphysical principles as by the doubtful resistance which he made to the rest. And it has been perfected and has received its last polish and roundness in the hands of some French philosophers, as Condillac and others. It has been generally supposed that Mr. Locke was the first person who, in his ‘Essay on the Human Understanding’ established the modern metaphysical system on a solid and immoveable basis. This is a great mistake. The system, such as it is, existed entire in all its general principles in Hobbes before him; this was never unequivocally or explicitly avowed by the author of the ‘Essay on the Human Understanding.’ Locke merely endeavoured to accommodate Hobbes’s leading principle to the more popular opinions of the time; and all that succeeding writers have done to improve upon his system, and clear it of inconsistent and extraneous matter, has only tended to reduce it back to the purity and simplicity in which it is to be found in Hobbes. The immediate and professed object of both these writers is indeed the same, namely, to account for our ideas and the formation of the human understanding from sensible impressions. But in the execution of this design, Mr. Locke has deviated widely and at almost every step from his predecessor. This difference would almost unavoidably arise from the natural character of their minds, which were the most opposite conceivable. Hobbes had the utmost reliance on himself, and was impatient of the least doubt or contradiction. He saw from the beginning to the end of his system. He is always therefore on firm ground, and never once swerves from his object. He is at no pains to remove objections, or soften consequences. Granting his first principle, all the rest follows of course. There is an air of grandeur in the stern confidence with which he stands alone in the world of his own opinions, regardless of his contemporaries, and conscious that he is the founder of a new race of thinkers. Locke, on the other hand, was a man, who without the same comprehensive grasp of thought had a greater deference for the opinions of others, and was of a much more cautious and circumspect turn of mind. He could not but meet with many things in the peremptory assertions of Hobbes that must make him pause, that he would be at a loss to reconcile to an attentive observation of what passed in his own mind, and that would equally shock the prevailing notions both of the learned and the ignorant. He was therefore led to consider the different objections to the system which had been left unanswered and unnoticed, to make a compromise between the received doctrines, and the violent paradoxes contained in the ‘Leviathan’ and the ‘Treatise of Human Nature,’ or to admit these last with so many qualifications, with so much circumlocution and preparation, and after such an appearance of the most mature and candid examination, and of willingness to be convinced on the other side of the question, as to obviate the offensive and harsh effect which accompanies the abrupt dogmatism of the original author. It was perhaps necessary that the opinions of Hobbes should undergo this sort of metamorphosis before they could gain a hearing: as the direct rays of the sun must be blunted and refracted by passing through some denser medium in order to be borne by common eyes. So sheathed and softened, their sharp, unpleasant points taken off, his doctrines almost immediately met with a favourable reception, and became popular. The general principle being once established without its particular consequences, and the public mind assured, it was soon found an easy task to point out the inconsistency of Mr. Locke’s reasoning in many respects, and to give a more decided tone to his philosophical system. Berkeley was one of the first who tried the experiment of pushing his principles into the verge of paradox on the question of abstract ideas, which he has done with admirable dexterity and clearness, but without going beyond the explicitness of Hobbes on the same question. Subsequent writers added different chapters to supply the deficiencies of the Essay, which, with scarcely a single exception, may be found essentially comprized in that institute and digest of modern philosophy, our author’s ‘Leviathan.’
In thus giving the praise of originality and force of mind to Hobbes, and regarding Locke merely as his follower, I may be thought to venture on dangerous ground, or to lay unhallowed hands on a reputation which is dear to every lover of truth. But if something is due to fame, something is also due to justice. I confess however, that having brought this charge against the ‘Essay on the Human Understanding,’ I am bound to make it good in the fullest manner; otherwise, I shall be inexcusable.
What I therefore propose in the remainder of the present Essay is to show that Mr. Locke was not really the founder of the modern system of philosophy as it respects the human mind; and I shall think that I have sufficiently established this point, if I can make it appear, both that the principle itself on which that system rests, and all the striking consequences which have been deduced from it, are to be found in the writings of Hobbes, more clearly, decidedly, and forcibly expressed than they are in the ‘Essay on the Human Understanding.’ When I speak of the principle of the modern metaphysical system, I mean the assumption that the operations of the intellect are only a continuation of the impulses existing in matter, or that all the thoughts and conceptions of the mind are nothing more nor less than various modifications of the original impressions of things on a being endued with sensation or simple perception. This system considers ideas merely as they are caused by external objects, acting on the organs of sense, and tries to account for them on that hypothesis solely. It is upon this principle of excluding the understanding as a distinct faculty or power from all share in its own operations, that the whole of Hobbes’s reasoning proceeds. Let us see what he makes of it.
The first part of the ‘Leviathan,’ entitled ‘Of Man,’ begins in this manner:
Chapter I.—Of Sense.—‘Concerning the thoughts of man, I will consider them, first singly, and afterwards in train, or dependence upon one another. Singly, they are every one a representation or appearance of some quality or other accident of a body without us; which is commonly called an object: Which object worketh on the eyes, ears, and other parts of man’s body; and by diversity of working, produceth diversity of appearances.
‘The Original of them all is that which we call Sense: For there is no conception in a man’s mind which hath not at first, totally or by parts, been begotten upon the organs of sense. The rest are derived from that original.
‘The cause of sense is the external body or object which presseth the organ proper to each sense, either immediately as in the taste and touch, or mediately as in seeing, hearing, and smelling: which pressure by the mediation of nerves, and other strings and membranes of the body, continued inwards to the Brain and Heart, causeth there a resistance or counter-pressure, or endeavour of the heart to deliver itself: which endeavour, because outward, seemeth to be some matter without. And this seeming or fancy is that which men call sense: and consisteth to the eye, in a light or colour figured; to the ear, in a sound; to the nostril, in an odour; to the tongue and palate, in a savour, and to the rest of the body in heat, cold, hardness, softness, and such other qualities, as we discern by feeling. All which qualities called sensible are in the object that causeth them but so many several motions of the matter by which it presseth our organs diversely. Neither in us that are pressed are they any thing else but divers motions; for motion produceth nothing but motion. But their appearance to us is fancy, the same waking as dreaming. And as pressing, rubbing, or striking the eye maketh us fancy a light, and pressing the ear produceth a din, so do the bodies also we see or hear produce the same by their strong, though unobserved action. For if those colours and sounds were in the bodies or objects that cause them, they could not be severed from them, as by glasses and in echoes by reflection we see they are: where we know the thing we see is in one place, the appearance in another, and though at some certain distance, the real and very object seems invested with the fancy it begets in us; yet still the object is one thing, the image or fancy is another. So that sense in all cases is nothing else but original fancy; caused, as I have said, by the pressure, that is, by the motion of external things upon our eyes, ears, and other organs thereunto ordained.
‘But the Philosophy-schools, through all the universities of Christendom, grounded upon certain texts of Aristotle, teach another doctrine; and say, For the cause of vision, that the thing seen sendeth forth on every side a visible species, (in English) a visible show, apparition, aspect, or being seen; the receiving whereof into the eye, is seeing. And for the cause of hearing, that the thing heard sendeth forth an audible species, that is, an audible aspect, or audible being seen; which entering at the ear, maketh hearing. Nay, for the cause of understanding also, they say the thing understood sendeth forth an intelligible species, that is an intelligible being seen; which coming into the understanding, makes us understand. I say not this as disapproving the use of universities: but because I am to speak hereafter of their office in a commonwealth, I must let you see on all occasions by the way, what things would be amended in them; amongst which the frequency of insignificant speech is one.’—Leviathan, p. 4.
Thus far our author. It is evident that in this account he has laid the foundation of Berkeley’s ideal system, though he does not seem any where to have gone the whole length of that doctrine. He has entered more at large into this point in the ‘Discourse of Human Nature,’ published in 1640, ten years before the ‘Leviathan’; and as the subject is curious, and treated in a very decisive way, I will quote the concluding passage, which is a recapitulation of the rest.
‘As colour is not inherent in the object, but an effect thereof upon us, caused by such motion in the object as hath been described; so neither is sound in the thing we hear, but in ourselves. One manifest sign thereof is, that as a man may see, so also he may hear double or treble, by multiplication of echoes, which echoes are sounds as well as the original, and not being in one and the same place, cannot be inherent in the body that maketh them. And to proceed to the rest of the senses, it is apparent enough that the smell and taste of the same thing are not the same to every man, and therefore are not in the thing smelt or tasted, but in the men. So likewise the heat we feel from the fire is manifestly in us, and is quite different from the heat which is in the fire: for our heat is pleasure or pain, according as it is great or moderate; but in the coal there is no such thing. By this the fourth and last proposition is proved; viz. That as in vision, so also in conceptions that arise from other senses, the subject of their inherence is not in the object, but in the sentient. And from hence also it followeth that whatsoever accidents or qualities our senses make us think there be in the world, they be not there, but are seeming and apparitions only: the things that really are in the world without us, are those motions by which these seemings are caused. And this is the great deception of sense, which also is to be by sense corrected: for as sense telleth me, when I see directly, that the colour seemeth to be in the object; so also sense telleth me when I see by reflection, that colour is not in the object.’—Human Nature, chap. ii. p. 9.
The second chapter of the ‘Leviathan’ contains an account of the manner in which our ideas are generated, and is as follows:
‘That when a thing lies still, unless somewhat else stir it, it will lie still for ever, is a truth that no man doubts of. But that when a thing is in motion, it will eternally be in motion, unless somewhat else stay it, though the reason be the same (namely, that nothing can change itself) is not so easily assented to. For men measure not only other men, but all other things by themselves; and because they find themselves subject after motion to pain and lassitude, think every thing else grows weary of motion, and seeks repose of its own accord; little considering whether it be not some other motion wherein that desire of rest they find in themselves consisteth. From hence it is, that the Schools say, heavy bodies fall downward out of an appetite to rest, and to conserve their nature in that place which is most proper for them: ascribing appetite and knowledge of what is good for their conservation (which is more than man has) to things inanimate, absurdly.
‘When a body is once in motion, it moveth (unless something else hinder it) eternally: and whatsoever hindereth it, cannot in an instant, but in time and by degrees quite extinguish it. And as we see in the water, though the wind cease, the waves give not over rolling for a long time after; so also it happeneth in that motion which is made in the internal parts of a man then, when he sees, hears, &c. For after the object is removed or the eye shut, we still retain an image of the thing seen, though more obscure than when we see it. And this is it the Latins call imagination, from the image made in seeing; and apply the same, though improperly, to all the other senses. But the Greeks call it fancy; which signifies appearance, and is as proper to one sense, as to another. Imagination is therefore nothing but decaying sense; and is found in man and many other living creatures, as well sleeping as waking.
‘The decay of sense in men waking is an obscuring of it in such manner as the light of the sun obscureth the light of the stars, which stars do no less exercise their virtue by which they are visible in the day than in the night. But because amongst many strokes, which our eyes, ears, and other organs receive from external bodies, the predominant only is sensible, therefore the light of the sun being predominant, we are not affected with the action of the stars. And any object being removed from our eyes, though the impression it made in us remain; yet other objects more present succeeding, and working on us, the imagination of the past is obscured, and made weak; as the voice of a man is in the noise of the day. From whence it follows, that the longer the time is, after the sight or sense of any objects the weaker is the imagination. For the continual change of man’s body destroys in time the parts which in sense were moved: so that distance of time and of place hath one and the same effect in us. For as at a great distance of place, that which we look at appears dim, and without distinction of the smaller parts, and as voices grow weak and inarticulate, so also after great distance of time, our imagination of the past is weak; and we lose (for example) of cities we have seen many particular streets, and of actions, many particular circumstances. This decaying sense, when we would express the thing itself (I mean fancy itself) we call Imagination, as I said before: but when we would express the decay, and signify that the sense is fading, old and past, it is called Memory. So that imagination and memory are but one thing which for divers considerations hath divers names. Much memory or memory of many things is called Experience.
‘Again, imagination being only of those things which have been formerly perceived by sense, either all at once, or by parts at several times, the former (which is the imagining the whole object as it was presented to the sense) is simple imagination; as when one imagineth a man or horse which he hath seen before. The other is compounded, as when from the sight of a man at one time, and of a horse at another, we conceive in our mind a centaur. So when a man compoundeth the image of his own person with the image of the actions of another man; as when a man conceives himself a Hercules or an Alexander (which happeneth often to them which are much taken with the reading of Romaunts) it is a compound imagination, and properly but a fiction of the mind.
‘There be also other imaginations that rise in man, (though waking) from the great impression made in sense: as from gazing upon the sun, the impression leaves an image of the sun before our eyes a long time after; and from being long and vehemently attent upon geometrical figures, a man shall in the dark (though awake) have the image of lines and angles before his eyes: which kind of fancy hath no particular name; as being a thing that doth not commonly fall into men’s discourse.
‘The imaginations of them that sleep are those we call dreams: and these also (as all other imaginations) have been before, either totally or by parcels in the sense, and because the brain and nerves, which are the necessary organs of sense, are so benumbed in sleep, as not easily to be moved by the action of external objects, there can happen in sleep no imagination; and therefore no dream but what proceeds from the agitation of the inward parts of man’s body; which inward parts, for the connexion they have with the brain and other organs, when they be distempered, do keep the same in motion; whereby the imaginations there formerly made, appear as if a man were waking; saving that the organs of sense being now benumbed, so as there is no new object, which can master and obscure them with a more vigorous impression, a dream must needs be more clear in this silence of sense, than are our waking thoughts. And hence it cometh to pass, that it is a hard matter, and by many thought impossible, to distinguish exactly between sense and dreaming. For my part, when I consider that in dreams I do not often, nor constantly think of the same persons, places, subjects, and actions that I do waking; nor remember so long a train of coherent thoughts dreaming, as at other times; and because waking I often observe the absurdity of dreams, but never dream of the absurdities of my waking thoughts,—I am well satisfied, that being awake, I know I dream not; though when I dream, I think myself awake.’—Leviathan, pp. 4, 5, 6.
The concluding paragraph of this Chapter is remarkable.
‘The imagination that is raised in man (or any other creature endued with the faculty of imagining) by words or other voluntary signs, is that we generally call Understanding: and is common to man and beast. For a dog by custom will understand the call or rating of his master, and so will many other beasts. That understanding which is peculiar to man, is the understanding not only his will, but his conceptions and thoughts, by the sequel and contexture of the names of things into affirmations, negations, and other forms of speech; and of this kind of understanding I shall speak hereafter.’—Page 8.
As in the first two chapters Mr. Hobbes endeavours to show that all our thoughts, considered singly or in themselves, have their origin in sensation, so in the next chapter, he resolves all their combinations or connexions one with another into the principle of association, or the coexistence of their sensible impressions.
‘By consequence or train of thoughts,’ he says, ‘I understand that succession of one thought to another, which is called (to distinguish it from discourse in words) mental discourse.’
‘When a man thinketh on any thing whatsoever, his next thought after it is not altogether so casual as it seems to be. Not every thought to every thought succeeds indifferently. But as we have no imagination, whereof we have not formerly had sense in whole or in parts; so we have no transition from one imagination to another, whereof we never had the like before in our senses. The reason whereof is this. All fancies are motions within us, reliques of those made in sense: and those motions that succeeded one another in the sense, continue also together after sense: insomuch as the former coming again to take place, and be predominant, the latter followeth, by coherence of the matter moved, in such manner, as water upon a plane table is drawn which way any one part of it is guided by the finger. But because in sense to one and the same thing perceived, sometimes one thing, sometimes another succeedeth, it comes to pass in time, that in the imagining of any thing, there is no certainty what we shall imagine next. Only this is certain, it shall be something that succeeded the same before, at one time or another.’—Page 9.
The comprehension and precision with which the law of association is here unfolded as the key to every movement of the mind, and as regulating every wandering thought, cannot be too much admired; it is enough to say that Hartley, who certainly understood more of the power of association than any other man, has added nothing to this short passage, as far as relates to the succession of ideas. He has indeed extended its application in unravelling the fine web of our affections and feelings, by showing how one idea transfers the feeling of pleasure or pain to others associated with it, which is not here noticed. Whether this principle really has all the extent and efficacy ascribed to it by either of these writers will be made the subject of a future inquiry. How well our author understood the question, and how much it had assumed a consistent and systematic form in his mind will appear from the instances he brings in illustration of this intricate and at the time almost unthought-of subject.
‘The train of thoughts or mental discourse is of two sorts. The first is unguided, without design and inconstant; wherein there is no passionate thought to govern and direct those that follow to itself as the end and scope of some desire or other passion; in which case the thoughts are said to wander and seem impertinent one to another as in a dream. Such are commonly the thoughts of men, that are not only without company, but also without care of any thing: though even then their thoughts are as busy as at other times, but without harmony, as the sound which a lute out of tune would yield to any man, or in tune to one that could not play. And yet in this wild ranging of the mind, a man may ofttimes perceive the way of it, and the dependence of one thought upon another. For in a discourse of our present civil war, what could seem more impertinent than to ask (as one did) what was the value of a Roman penny? Yet the coherence to me was manifest enough. For the thoughts of the war introduced the thought of the delivering up the king to his enemies; the thought of that brought in the thought of the delivering up of Christ; and that again the thought of the thirty pence, which was the price of that treason: and thence easily followed that malicious question; and all this in a moment of time; for thought is quick.
‘The second’ [that is the second sort of association] ‘is more constant, as being regulated by some desire, and design. For the impression made by such things as we desire or fear, is strong and permanent, or, if it cease for a time, of quick return; so strong it is sometimes as to hinder and break our sleep. From desire ariseth the thought of some means we have seen produce the like of what we aim at: and from the thought of that, the thought of means to that mean, and so continually till we come to some beginning within our own power.’
He adds,—‘This train of regulated thoughts is of two kinds: one, when of an effect imagined, we seek the causes or means that produce it; and this is common to man and beast. The other is when imagining anything whatsoever, we seek all the possible effects that can by it be produced: that is to say, we imagine what we can do with it when we have it. Of which I have not at any time seen any sign but in man only; for this is a curiosity hardly incident to the nature of any living creature that has no other passion but sensual, such as are hunger, thirst, lust, and anger. In sum, the discourse of the mind when it is governed by design, is nothing but seeking or the faculty of invention, which the Latins call sagacitas and solertia, a finding out of the causes of some effect, present or past; or of the effects of some present or past cause. Sometimes a man desires to know the event of an action; and then he thinketh of some like action past, and the events thereof one after another; supposing like events will follow like actions. As he that foresees what will become of a criminal, re-cons what he has seen follow on the like crime before; having this order of thoughts, the crime, the officer, the prison, the judge, and the gallows, which kind of thoughts is called foresight, and prudence or providence; and sometimes wisdom; though such conjecture, through the difficulty of observing all circumstances, be very fallacious. But this is certain; by how much one man has more experience of things past than another; by so much also he is more prudent; and his expectations the seldomer fail him. The present only has a being in nature; things past have a being in the memory only, but things to come have no being at all; the future being but a fiction of the mind, applying the sequels of actions past to the actions that are present; which with most certainty is done by him that has most experience; but not with certainty enough, and though it be called prudence when the event answereth our expectation, yet in its own nature it is but presumption; for the foresight of things to come, which is providence, belongs only to him by whose will they are to come: from him only, and supernaturally, proceeds prophecy. The best prophet naturally is the best guesser; and the best guesser, he that is most versed and studied in the matters he guesses at; for he hath most signs to guess by.’—Page 10.
After this account he immediately adds,—
‘There is no other act of man’s mind that I can remember, naturally planted in him, so as to need no other thing to the exercise of it but to be born a man, and live with the use of his five senses. Those other faculties, of which I shall speak by and by, and which seem proper to man only, are acquired, and increased by study and industry; and of most men learned by instruction and discipline; and proceed all from the invention of words and speech: for besides sense and thoughts, and the train of thoughts, the mind of man has no other motion, though by the help of speech and method, the same faculties may be improved to such a height, as to distinguish men from all other living creatures.’—Page 11.
The conclusion of this chapter in which the author treats of the limits of the imagination is too important, and has laid the foundation of too many speculations, to be passed over. ‘Whatsoever we imagine is finite. Therefore there is no idea, or conception of any thing we call infinite. No man can have in his mind an image of infinite magnitude; nor conceive infinite swiftness, infinite time, or infinite force, or infinite power. When we say any thing is infinite, we signify only that we are not able to conceive the ends and bounds of the thing named; having no conception of the thing, but of our own inability: and therefore the name of God is used, not to make us conceive him (for he is incomprehensible and his greatness and power are inconceivable) but that we may honour him. And because whatsoever we conceive has been perceived first by sense, either all at once, or by parts, a man can have no thought, representing any thing, not subject to sense. No man, therefore, can conceive any thing, but he must conceive it in some place, and indued with some determinate magnitude, and which may be divided into parts; not that any thing is all in this place, and all in another place at the same time; nor that two or more things can be in one and the same place at once: for none of these things ever have, nor can be incident to sense; but are absurd speeches, taken upon credit (without any signification at all), from deceived philosophers, and deceived, or deceiving schoolmen.’—Page 11.
By the extracts which I shall next borrow from his account of language and reasoning, it will appear that our author not only threw out the first hints of the modern system, which reduces all reasoning and understanding to the mechanism of language, but that by a very high kind of abstraction, he carried it to perfection at once. The whole race of plodding commentators, or dashing paradox-mongers since his time have not advanced a step beyond him. I shall give this part somewhat at large, both because the question is intricate in itself, and as it will serve as a specimen of his general mode of writing, in which dry sarcasm, keen observation, extensive thought, and the most rigid logic conveyed in a concise and masterly style, are all brought to bear upon the same object.
‘The invention of printing,’ he says, ‘though ingenious, compared with the invention of letters is no great matter. But who was the first that found the use of letters, is not known. He that first brought them into Greece, men say, was Cadmus, the son of Agenor, King of Phœnicia. A profitable invention for continuing the memory of time past, and the conjunction of mankind, dispersed into so many and distant regions of the earth; and withal difficult, as proceeding from a watchful observation of the divers motions of the tongue, palate, lips, and other organs of speech, whereby to make as many differences of characters to remember them; but the most noble and profitable invention of all other, was that of speech, consisting of names or appellations, and their connections; whereby men register their thoughts, recall them when they are past, and also declare them one to another for mutual utility and conversation; without which there had been amongst men, neither commonwealth, nor society, nor contract, nor peace, no more than amongst lions, bears, and wolves. The first author of speech was God himself, that instructed Adam how to name such creatures as he presented to his sight; for the scripture goeth no farther in this matter. But this was sufficient to direct him to add more names, as the experience and use of the creatures should give him occasion; and to join them in such manner by degrees, as to make himself understood, and so by succession of time, so much language might be gotten, as he had found use for; though not so copious as an orator or philosopher has need of: for I do not find any thing in the scripture, out of which, directly or by consequence can be gathered, that Adam was taught the names of all figures, numbers, measures, colours, sounds, fancies, relations; much less the names of words and speech, as, general, special, affirmative, negative, interrogative, optative, infinitive, all which are useful; and least of all, of entity, intentionality, quiddity, and other insignificant words of the school.
‘The manner how speech serveth to the remembrance of the consequence of causes and effects, consisteth in the imposing of names, and the connexion of them. Of names, some are proper, and singular to one only thing; as Peter, John, this man, this tree: and some are common to many things; man, horse, tree; every of which though but one name, is nevertheless the name of divers particular things; in respect of all which together, it is called an 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 accident: and whereas a proper name bringeth to mind one thing only, universals recall any one of those many. 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. For example: a man that hath no use of speech at all, that is born and remains perfectly deaf and dumb, if he set before his eyes a triangle, and by it two right angles (such as are the corners of a square figure,) he may by meditation compare and find, that the three angles of that triangle are equal to those two right angles that stand by it: but if another triangle be shown him different in shape from the former, he cannot know without a new labour, whether the three angles of that also be equal to the same. But he that hath the use of words, when he observes that such equality was consequent, not to the length of the sides, nor to any other particular thing in his triangle but only to this, that the sides were straight, and the angles three and that that was all for which he named it a triangle, will boldly conclude universally that such equality of angles is in all triangles whatsoever, and register his invention in these general terms: every triangle hath its three angles equal to two right angles. And thus the consequence found in one particular, comes to be registered and remembered as an universal rule; discharges our mental reckoning of time and place; 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. But the use of words in registering our thoughts, is in nothing so evident as in numbering. A natural fool that could never learn by heart the order of numeral words, as one, two, and three, may observe every stroke of the clock, and nod to it, or say one, one; but can never know what hour it strikes. And it seems, there was a time when those names of number were not in use, and men were fain to apply their fingers of one or both hands to those things they desired to keep account of; and that thence it proceeds, that now our numeral words are but ten, in any nation, and in some but five, and then they begin again. And he that can tell ten, if he recite them out of order, will lose himself, and not know when he hath done: much less will he be able to add, and subtract, and perform all other operations of arithmetic. So that without words there is no possibility of reckoning of numbers; much less of magnitudes, of swiftness, of force, and other things, the reckoning whereof is necessary to the being, or well-being of mankind.’—Leviathan, chap. iv., pp. 12, 14.
The same train of reasoning occurs in the ‘Discourse of Human Nature,’ with some variation in the expression.
‘By the advantage of names it is that we are capable of science, which beasts for want of them are not; nor man, without the use of them; for as a beast misseth not one or two out of her many young ones, for want of those names of order, one, two, and three, and which we call number; so neither would a man without repeating orally or mentally those words of number, know how many pieces of money or other things lie before him. Seeing there be many conceptions of one and the same thing, and that for every conception we give it a several name, it followeth that for one and the same thing, we have many names or attributes; as to the same man we give the appellations of just, valiant, strong, comely, &c. And again, because from divers things we receive like conceptions, many things must needs have the same appellations: as to all things we see we give the name of visible. Those names we give to many, are called universal to them all: as the name of man to every particular of mankind. Such appellations as we give to one only thing, we call individual, or singular; as Socrates and other proper names, or by circumlocution, He that writ the Iliads, for Homer.
‘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. 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 choose 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 king or any particular person, he limiteth the painter to that one person he chooseth. It is plain therefore there is nothing universal but names, which are therefore called indefinite, because we limit them not ourselves, but leave them to be applied by the hearer: whereas a singular name is limited and restrained to one of the many things it signifieth, as when we say, This man, pointing to him, or giving him his proper name, or in some such way.’—Human Nature, chap. v. pp. 25, 26.
We shall have occasion to see, in the course of this inquiry, how exactly Berkeley’s account of the process of abstraction, in contradiction to Locke’s opinion, corresponds in every particular with this passage of our author. To return to his account of truth, reason, &c.
‘When two names are joined together into a consequence or affirmation, by the help of this little verb, is, as thus: a man is a living creature; if the latter name, living creature, signify all that the former name, man, signifieth, then the affirmation or consequence is true; otherwise false. For True and False are attributes of speech, not of things. And where speech is not, there is neither truth nor falsehood. Error there may be, as when we expect that which shall not be, or suspect what has not been: but in neither case can a man be charged with untruth.
‘Seeing, then, that truth consisteth in the right ordering of names in our affirmations, a man that seeketh precise truth had need to remember what every name he uses stands for, and to place it accordingly: or else he will find himself entangled in words, as a bird in lime-twigs. And therefore in Geometry (which is the only science that it has pleased God hitherto to bestow on mankind) men begin at settling the significations of their words, which settling of significations they call definitions, and place them in the beginning of their reckoning. By this it appears how necessary it is for any man that aspires to true knowledge to examine the definitions of former authors, and either to correct them when they are negligently set down, or to make them himself. For the errors of definition multiply themselves according as the reckoning proceeds; and lead men into absurdities which they at last see, but cannot avoid without reckoning anew from the beginning. From whence it happens that they which trust to books do as they that cast up many little sums into a greater, without considering whether those little sums were rightly cast up or not, and at last finding the error visible, and not mistrusting their first grounds, know not which way to clear themselves, but spend time in fluttering over their books, as birds that entering by the chimney, and finding themselves enclosed in a chamber, flutter at the false light of a glass window, for want of wit to consider which way they came in. So that 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 them that take their instruction from the authority of books and not from their own meditations, 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 doctrines, ignorance is in the middle. Natural sense and imagination are not subject to absurdity. Nature itself cannot err; and as men abound in copiousness of language, so they become more wise or more mad than ordinary. Nor is it possible without letters for any man to become either excellently wise or (unless his memory be hurt by disease or ill constitution of organs) excellently foolish. For words are wise men’s counters, they do but reckon by them: but they are the money of fools, that value them by the authority of an Aristotle, a Cicero, a Thomas Aquinas, or any other doctor whatsoever.
‘Subject to names is whatsoever can enter into, or be considered in an account, and be added one thing to another to make a sum, or subtracted one from another and leave a remainder. The Latins called accounts of money rationes, and accounting, ratiocinatio, and that which we in bills or books of accounts call items, they call nomina, or names; and thence it seems to proceed that they extended the word ratio to the faculty of reckoning in all other things. The Greeks have but one word, λογος for both speech and reason, not that they thought there was no speech without reason, but no reason without speech: and the act of reasoning they call syllogism, which signifieth summing up (or putting together) the consequences of one saying to another. For reason is nothing but reckoning (that is, adding and subtracting) of the consequences of general names agreed upon for the marking and signifying of our thoughts; I say marking them, when we reckon by ourselves, and signifying them, when we demonstrate or approve our reckonings to other men.
‘And as in arithmetic, unpractised men must, and professors themselves may, often err, and cast up false, so also in any other subject of reasoning, the ablest, most attentive, and most practised men may deceive themselves, and infer false conclusions: not but that reason itself is always right reason, as well as arithmetic is a certain and infallible art. But no one man’s reason, nor the reason of any number of men makes the certainty: no more than an account is therefore well cast up, because a great many men have unanimously approved it. And, therefore, as when there is a controversy in an account, the parties must by their own accord set up for right reason the reason of some arbitrator or judge, so it is in all debates of what kind soever: and when men that think themselves wiser than all others, clamour and demand right reason for judge, yet seek no more but that things should be determined by no other men’s reason but their own, it is as intolerable in the society of men as it is in play, after trump is turned, to use for trump on every occasion that suit whereof they have most in their hand. For they do nothing else that will have every of their passions, as it comes to bear sway in them, to be taken for right reason, and that in their own controversies, betraying their want of right reason by the claim they lay to it.
‘When a man reckons without the use of words, which may be done in particular things (as when upon the sight of any one thing, we conjecture what was likely to have preceded, or is likely to follow upon it), if that which he thought likely to have preceded it, hath not preceded it, this is called error, to which even the most prudent men are subject. But when we reason in words of general signification, and fall upon a general inference which is false, though it be commonly called error, it is indeed an absurdity or senseless speech. For error is but a deception in presuming that somewhat is past, or to come, of which, though it were not past, or not to come, yet there was no impossibility discoverable. But when we make a general assertion, unless it be a true one, the possibility of it is inconceivable. And words whereby we conceive nothing but the sound, are those we call absurd, insignificant, and nonsense. And, therefore, 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 an error, but that his words were without meaning, that is to say, absurd.’—Chap. iv. v., pp. 15, 18, &c.
The account of the passions and affections which follows next in order, is the same in almost every particular as that which is given in modern treatises on this subject, except that Mr. Hobbes seems to make curiosity or the desire of knowledge, an original passion of the mind, peculiar to man. From this part I shall only quote two passages, and then proceed to his treatise on the ‘Doctrine of Necessity,’ which will conclude my account of this author.
The first passage is the one from which Locke has copied his famous definition of the difference between wit and judgment. After observing (Chap. viii.) that the difference of men’s talents does not depend on natural capacity, which, he says, is nothing else but sense, wherein men differ so little from one another, or from brutes, that it is not worth the reckoning, he goes on:
‘This difference of quickness in imagining is caused by the difference 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. And whereas in this succession of thoughts there is nothing to observe in the things they think on, but either in what they be like one another or in what they be unlike—those that observe their similitudes, in case they be such as are but rarely observed by others, are said to have a good wit, by which is meant on this occasion a good fancy. But they that observe their differences and dissimilitudes, which is called distinguishing and discerning and judging between thing and thing, in case such discerning be not easy, are said to have a good judgment; and particularly, in matter of conversation and business, wherein times, places, and persons are to be discerned, this virtue is called discretion. The former, that is, fancy, without the help of judgment, is not commended for a virtue, but the latter which is judgment or discretion, is commended for itself, without the help of fancy.’ p. 32. This definition, which Locke took entire from our author without acknowledgment, and which has been so often referred to, is evidently false, for as Harris, the author of ‘Hermes,’ has very well observed, the finding out the equality of the three angles of a triangle to two right ones would upon the principle here stated, be a piece of wit instead of an act of the understanding or judgment, and ‘Euclid’s Elements’ a collection of epigrams.[[5]] The other passage which I proposed to quote chiefly as an instance of our author’s power of imagination, is as follows. In speaking of the degree of madness, as in fanatics and others, he says:
‘Though the effect of folly in them that are possessed of an opinion of being inspired be not always visible in one man, by any very extravagant action that proceedeth from such passion, yet when many of them conspire together, the rage of the whole multitude is visible enough. For what greater argument of madness can there be 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. For as in the midst of the sea, though a man perceive no sound of that part of the water next him, yet he is well assured that part contributes as much to the roaring of the sea as any other part of the same quantity, so also though we perceive no great unquietness in one or two men, yet we may be well assured that their singular passions are parts of the seditious roaring of a troubled nation.’ Even Mr. Burke did not disdain to borrow one of Hobbes’s images. The author of the ‘Leviathan’ compares those who attempt to reform a decayed commonwealth to ‘the foolish daughters of Pelias who desiring to renew the youth of their decrepit father did by the counsel of Medea cut him in pieces and boil him, together with strange herbs, but made not of him a new man.’
I think this is better expressed than the same allusion in Burke, which is I dare say well known to my readers.
I shall not here enter into the doctrine of Liberty and Necessity, which Hobbes has stated with great force and precision as a general question of cause and effect, and without any particular reference to his mechanical theory of the mind, as I shall fully investigate this subject in my next Essay.
I have thus taken a review of the metaphysical writings of Hobbes, as far as was necessary to establish what I at first proposed, namely, the general conformity, and almost entire coincidence between his opinions, and the principles of the modern system of philosophy. The praise of originality at least, of boldness and vigour of mind, belongs to him. The strength of reason which his application of a general principle to explain almost all the phenomena of human nature implies, can hardly be surpassed. The truth of the system is another question, which I shall hereafter proceed to consider.
I will first, however, distinctly enumerate the leading principles of his philosophy, as they are to be found in Hobbes, and in the latest writers of the same School. They are, I conceive, as follows:
1. That all our ideas are derived from external objects, by means of the senses alone.
2. That as nothing exists out of the mind but matter and motion, so it is itself with all its operations nothing but matter and motion.
3. That thoughts are single, or that we can think of only one object at a time. In other words, that there is no comprehensive power or faculty of understanding in the mind.
4. That we have no general or abstract ideas.
5. That the only principle of connexion between one thought and another is association, or their previous connexion in sense.
6. That reason and understanding depend entirely on the mechanism of language.
7 and 8. That the sense of pleasure and pain is the sole spring of action, and self-interest the source of all our affections.
9. That the mind acts from a mechanical or physical necessity, over which it has no controul, and consequently is not a moral or accountable agent.—The manner of stating and reasoning upon this point is the only circumstance of importance in which modern writers differ from Hobbes.
10. That there is no difference in the natural capacities of men, the mind being originally passive to all impressions alike, and becoming whatever it is from circumstances.
All of these positions it is my intention to oppose to the utmost of my ability. Except the first, they are most or all of them either denied or doubtfully admitted by Locke. And as it is his admission of the first principle which has opened a door, directly or indirectly, to all the rest, I shall devote the Essay next but one to an examination of the account which he gives of the origin of our ideas from sensation.
It may perhaps be thought, that the neglect into which Hobbes’s metaphysical opinions have fallen was originally owing to the obloquy excited by the misanthropy and despotical tendency of his political writings. But it seems to me that he has been almost as hardly dealt with in the one case as in the other.
As to his principles of government, this may at least be said for them, that they are in form and appearance very much the same with those detailed long after in Rousseau’s ‘Social Contract,’ and evidently suggested the plan of that work, which has never been considered as a defence of tyranny. The author indeed requires an absolute submission in the subject to the laws, but then it is to be in consequence of his own consent to obey them. Every man is at least supposed to be his own lawgiver.
Secondly, as to the misanthropy with which he is charged, for having made fear the actual foundation and cement of civil society, he has I think made his own apology very satisfactorily in these words:
‘It may seem strange to some man that hath not well weighed these things, that nature should thus dissociate and render men apt to invade and destroy one another; and he may therefore, not trusting to the inference made from the passions, desire perhaps to have the same confirmed by experience. Let him therefore consider with himself—when taking a journey he arms himself, and seeks to go well accompanied; when going to sleep he locks his doors; when even in his house, he locks his chests, and this when he knows there be laws and public officers, armed to revenge all injuries that shall be done him;—what opinion I say, he has of his fellow subjects when he rides armed, of his fellow citizens when he locks his doors, and of his children and servants, when he locks his chests. Does he not then accuse mankind as much by his actions as I do by my words? Yet neither of us accuse man’s nature in it.’—Leviathan, p. 62.
It is true the bond of civil government according to his account, is very different from Burke’s ‘soft collar of social esteem,’ and takes away the sentimental part of politics. But I confess I see nothing liberal in this ‘order of thoughts,’ as Hobbes elsewhere expresses it, ‘the crime, the officer, the prison, the judge and the gallows,’ which is nevertheless a good description of the nature and end of political institutions.
The true reason of the fate which this author’s writings met with was that his views of things were too original and comprehensive to be immediately understood, without passing through the hands of several successive generations of commentators and interpreters. Ignorance of another’s meaning is a sufficient cause of fear, and fear produces hatred: hence arose the rancour and suspicion of his adversaries, who, to quote some fine lines of Spenser,
——‘Stood all astonied like a sort of steers
’Mongst whom some beast of strange and foreign race
Unwares is chanced, far straying from his peers:
So did their ghastly gaze betray their hidden fears.’