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.