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]