Leviathan

OXFORD WORLD'S CLASSICS

THOMAS HOBBES

Leviathan Edited with an Introduction and Notes by

]. C. A. GASKIN

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox.z 6oP Oxford Univcrsit) Press is a department of the Uni\ersit) of Oxford. It furthers the Cnil"ersity's objccti\"c of cxccllcncc in research, scholarship, and education by publishing \\orldwide in Oxford New York :\thcns Auckland Bangkok Hogotoi Buenos Aires Calcutta Cape Town Chcnnai Dar cs Salaam Delhi Florence Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid \lclbournc \1cxico Cit) !\\umbai ;-..;airobi Paris Sio Paulo Shanghai Singapore Taipei Tok~o Toronto \\r'arsan with associated companies in Berlin lbadan Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford Lni\crsit) Press in the LX and in certain other countries Published in the United States b) Oxford UniH:rsity Press Inc., ~e\\ York Editorial matter

t: J.

C. :\. Gaskin 1996

The moral rights of the author ha\·e been asserted Database right Oxford Cni,·ersity Press (maker) First published as a World's Classics paperback 1':196 Reissued as an 0:\ford World's Classics paperba Hobbes; edited with an introduction by J. C. :\. Gaskin. (Oxford world's classics) Includes hihliographical rcfi.:rences and index. I. Political ~cicncc-Early works to 1800. 2. State, The. I. Gasl..in,j. C.:\. Uohn Charle Addison). II. Titk III. Scrie~. JC15J.H65 1996 J20.1-dc20 95--40506

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13 Printed in Great Britain b~ Clays Ltd, St hcs pk

OXFORD WORLD'S CLASSICS

LEVIATHAN THOMAS HOBBES was born near Malmesbury in Wiltshire in I s88. Well taught in local schools and, from his own reports, ill taught at Oxford, he was employed as tutor and secretary by the Cavendish family for much of his lite. His three tours of the Continent before 1640 introduced him to the new learning of Galileo and others, and established the cunnel:tions necessary for his sojourn in Paris, 164o-5I, during the English Civil Wars. His first substantial original work was The Elements of Law (1640). Its arguments concerning nature, man, and society were redeployed and extended in De Cive (1642), his masterpiece Leviathan (165I), and De Corpore (1655), as well as in numerous other fiercely controversial publications. Popularly condemned for his political philosophy, his analysis of morality, and his 'atheism', his works were nevertheless widely read in England and Europe. After the Restoration in 166o he survived his own notoriety under the protection of Charles II and the Earl of Devonshire. He died at Hardwick Hall in 1679, his character as a philosopher almost universally denigrated; his character as a man able to attract the kindness and friendship of almost all who knew him. JOHN GASKIN is the Professor of Naturalistic Philosophy and Head of the Department of Philosophy in the University of Dublin. He is also a Fellow of Trinity College Dublin. A graduate of Oxford University, his publications include The Quest for Eternity (1984), Hume's Philosophy of Religion (1988 and 1993), and Varieties of Unbelief (1989). He has previously edited a volume of David Hume's works on religion and Hobbes's The Elements of Law for Oxford World's Classics. His latest publication is The Epicurean Philosophers ( 1995), which includes translations of the complete works of Epicurus and Lucretius.

PREFACE No one can pretend that editions of Leviathan are now few or hard to locate. But they often represent editorial extremes. One extreme retains antique spelling, every odd use of italics or capital letters, and even the curiosities of seventeenth-century typography. The other extreme changes italics, punctuation, paragraph lengths, and in short anything (except the order of the words themselves) which the editor thinks will make the text easier to read according to the fashion of the moment. The normal reader will surely look for something between these extremes: something which reproduces as faithfully as possible what Hobbes actually sanctioned for publication, but without the accidental impediments which play no part in what Hobbes meant or what he wished to be read. I have attempted to provide such a text. It is free from antique spellings and printing conventions which had no significance even in the seventeenth century. It is authentic and complete in all other respects. The notes-philosophical, textual, historical, and biographical-offer information if it is wanted. They make a special effort to indicate where the thought and arguments of Leviathan may be followed in other of Hobbes's major philosophical works. The Introduction takes up some of the more obvious issues raised by Leviathan without attempting any grand assessment. A great philosophical text should be read with the new eyes of each generation, sharpened by relevant information, not directed by old judgements. The judgements and the overviews can be built into the picture later. The excitement of the ideas must come first. To facilitate references to and within the text I have inserted a new run of paragraph numbers for each chapter, as Hobbes himself did in his other main philosophical works. For the same reason I have put the page numbers of the original 165 r edition in the margins: a mode of reference used by a number of commentators. All the editorial material is new with the exception of two notes and parts of five paragraphs which are adapted from similar material in my World's Classics edition of The Elements of Law (Human Nature and De Corpore Politico). I am grateful to the work done by Richard Tuck in recording in his edition of Leviathan the variants in the large paper copies. As explained in the Note on the Text, these are incorporated into the present edition. I would like to express my indebtedness to my editor, Judith Luna, for v

PREFACE

her patience and encouragement, and to William Lyons for his friendly advice and generous help. I would further like to express my gratitude to Trinity College Dublin, for awarding me a grant from the Arts and Social Sciences Benefactions Fund to enable m.e to undertake some of the work required, to Marsh's Library for allowing me access to their copies of the Head edition, and finally again to Trinity College for granting me sabbatical leave to bring this book to a conclusion. jOHN GASKIN

VI

CONTENTS A Scheme of Reference

IX

Introduction

XI

A Note on the Text

xliv

Select Bibliography Chronology

!iii

LEVIATHAN The Epistle Dedicatory

3

The Contents of the Chapters

5

The Introduction

7

Part

I.

OF MAN

9

Part

2.

OF COMMONWEALTH

I II

Part 3·

OF A CHRISTIAN COMMONWEALTH

247

Part 4·

OF THE KINGDOM OF DARKNESS

403

467

A Review, and Conclusion Explanatory Notes

477

Index of Subjects

501

Vll

A SCHEME OF REFERENCE The Elements of Law Natural and Politic (1640), Part I Human Nature, Part II De Corpore Politico, ed. ]. C. A. Gaskin (World's Classics, 1994). De Cive Philosophical Rudiments concerning Government and Society (1651), the English version of the Latin De Cive (1642), ed. Howard Warrender (Oxford, 1983). Spelling has been modernized in quotations cited. Leviathan Leviathan, or The Matter, Form, and Power ofa Commonwealth Ecclesiastical and Civil (1651). De Corpore Elements of Philosophy, the First Section concerning Body (1656), the English version of the Latin De Corpore ( 1655). Quotations are from the first volume of the English Works of Thomas Hobbes, ed. W. Molesworth (London, 1839). White's De Mundo Examined Thomas White's De Mundo Examined (written c. 1641) translated from the Latin by H. W. Jones and first published 1976 (Bradford University Press). Elements of Law

In all the above editions Hobbes or his editors have numbered the chapters in a single run of numbers from start to finish ignoring the Parts. Except in the case of Leviathan (where they are supplied in the present text), Hobbes also numbered the paragraphs or 'articles' in each chapter. This provides a convenient and brief method of reference to the works. Thus, for example, De Give, X. 6, means chapter X, paragraph 6. Until the Clarendon Edition ofthe Works ofThomas Hobbes is completed, other works of his must still be referred to in the English Works of Thomas Hobbes, ed. W. Molesworth, I 1 vols. (London, 1839). For short reference, English Works, followed by volume and page.

IX

INTRODUCTION THE memorable vividness of language, the sustained interconnections of argument, the insistent logic, the vast scale of the structure, and the learning and mental power required to sustain it all: these never fail in Leviathan. The result is one of the most powerful, influential, and eagerly refuted books ever written, and the only work in English on political philosophy that ranks with Plato, Aristotle, Hegel, and Marx. Education, Influences, and Outcomes

Thomas Hobbes was born on 5 April 1588 at Westport, adjoining Malmesbury in Wiltshire, where his father was parson-a man who 'disesteemed learning ... as not knowing the sweetness of it' 1-and who vanished early from the scene after assaulting one of his parishioners. His brother, Francis Hobbes, a wealthy glover without children of his own, thus assumed responsibility in loco parentis for the costs of young Thomas's education. At the age of 4 Hobbes went to Westport Church School, and at 8 to a private school at Malmesbury, where, according to his biographer Aubrey, he became proficient in Greek and Latin under the instruction of 'a good Graecian ... the first that came into our parts hereabout since the Reformation'. In early r6o3 he matriculated at Magdalen Hall, Oxford (the buildings are now part of Magdalen College) and there acquired the lifelong distaste for universities which surfaces not infrequently in Leviathan and in his polemical disputes with academics. Poised between the outmoded fashion for burning heretics, and the minor vindictiveness of refusing honorary degrees, Oxford belatedly vent its anger upon Hobbes in r683 by ordering copies of De Give and Leviathan to be burnt along with other 'Pernicious Books and Damnable Doctrines' on account of their being 'Heretical and Blasphemous, infamous to Christian Religion, and destructive of all Government in Church and State' .Z But, academic animosities apart, Oxford in the first decade of the seventeenth century 1 This, and many other charming details about Hobbes's character and life, can be found in John Aubrey's 'Brief Life'. This life, together with translations of Hobbes's own 'Prose Life' and 'Verse Life' (both originally written in Latin) can be found in the World's Classics edition of The Elements of Law (Human Nature and De Corpore Politico), Oxford, 1994. 2 The Judgement and Decree of the University of Oxford Past in their Convocation (Oxford, !683). Q!10ted in S. I. Mintz, The Hunting of Leviathan (Cambridge, 1969).

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indeed seems to have had little to commend it. Its intellectual enterprise was, according to Hobbes, jejune scholastic logic and useless Aristotelian physics. As usual, its students were prone to drunken brawling; less usually, its politics sheltered both Papal and Puritan sedition. Anthony Wood records that in 1608, just after Hobbes went down, 'a young forward bachelor' was disciplined for maintaining 'that it was lawful for a subject, in cause of religion, to forsake his prince, and take up arms against him'; 1 a principle that was to cast a long and destructive shadow over seventeenth-century life and politics. In early 1608 Hobbes graduated BA, having for no ascertainable reason spent one more than the then normal four years at the University. At the same time he was recommended by the Principal of Magdalen Hall to Sir William Cavendish (created Earl of Devonshire in 1618) as tutor and travelling companion to his eldest son. Although his employment was interrupted by force of circumstances on several occasions, Hobbes was eventually to sever his connections with the Cavendish family only under the force of final circumstances when he died at Hardwick Hall on 4 December 1679. In the thirty years after 1608, Hobbes published nothing but a translation of Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War. It is strange to speak of the formative years of a man's life as being between the ages of 20 and 52, but so it was with Hobbes. Before 1640 he had probably written no original work. 4 Between 1640 and his death, his philosophical works in English fill seven massive volumes in the Molesworth edition, and these of course do not include original Latin works like De Homine and the unpublished White's De Mundo Examined (see Scheme of Reference, p. ix). But the grounds for this extraordinary late flowering were being prepared throughout what, for Hobbes, counted as his long youth. The biographical chronology is somewhat difficult to establish, and the personal details are fragmentary, but the preparation clearly included Hobbes's knowledge and experience of the forces and events which led to the outbreak of civil war in 1642, together with a number of intellectual stimuli encountered piecemeal in his reading and travels. Throughout the period 1603 (when the United Kingdom of England 3 Quoted in George Croom Robertson, Hobbes (Edinburgh and London, 1886), 5· Even in 1995, this is still the only reasonably extensive compilation of information about Hobbes's life. ' A possible exception is the semi-Aristotelian 'Short Tract on First Principles', maybe written by Hobbes about 1630 and first published in 1889 as an Appendix to F. Tiinnies's edition of The Elements of Law.

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and Scotland was established at the accession of James I) to r642 (when civil war finally broke out between Charles I and the rebellious parliamentarians) civil society was increasingly threatened by claims that private consciences in matters of religion could absolve a man from his legal obligations to a sovereign, by Roman and Presbyterian claims to authority which could override the secular powers in a body politic, and by conflicts between king and parliament concerning the right to raise taxes, the government of the Church (and what sort of Church), the direction of foreign policy, and other constitutional matters. The common consent of historians is that James did not have the political abilities and personal authority of his august predecessor, Elizabeth I, and almost from the beginning tensions developed between the high-handed episcopalian king and his ever more puritanical and commercially minded parliaments. But in the new conditions, as Davies observes, it is very doubtful whether even Queen Elizabeth could have succeeded, for both these sovereigns regarded parliament as an unwelcome and intrusive body that had to be cajoled by occasional concessions into granting much-needed subsidies. Consequently they directed all their efforts to excluding the estates from any share in administration and listened to criticisms only when they either became unusually vehement or when the fiscal situation was especially serious.;

When this attitude was combined, as it was combined in both James I and Charles I (who succeeded his father in 1625), with a belief that a king had a divine right to govern and, moreover, to govern the established Church as a high Anglican in an increasingly puritanical country, the conditions for conflict with a parliament (whose constitutional lawyers were intent on returning to a supposed time in which Lords and Commons had more authority) were all in place. In 1629 Charles dismissed his parliament and for eleven years ruled by royal prerogative with great care and economy. But in r640 a need for money to raise an army to contain the rebellion of Presbyterian forces in Scotland obliged him to summon a parliament, the 'Short Parliament'. It sat in May r64o. The king could get nothing from it but unacceptable demands, and it was speedily dissolved. But the king's financial plight was now so serious that another parliament had to be called. In November r64o the anti-Royalist Long Parliament met for the first time. The increasingly desperate move and counter-move of king and Commons over the next eighteen months precipitated the now virtually inevitable civil war. 5

Godfrey Davies, The Early Stuarts t6oJ-I66o (Oxford, 1959), 15. Xlll

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Separated by religious, constitutional, social, and economic differences, Royalists and Parliamentarians fought it out over four years. The issue was defeat for the Royalists. The king surrendered to the Scots in May 1646. In 1649 he was executed in London. After what was in effect a second civil war, 1648-51, in which Cromwell's army suppressed rebellions in Scotland and Ireland and Royalist risings in Wales, Cromwell became Lord Protector. In 166o, after the death of Cromwell, Charles II was restored as king by general agreement. It is virtually certain that Hobbes became aware of the acute political dangers inherent in combining constitutional problems with dogmatic and divisive religious convictions while he was still at Oxford. It is a fact indisputable that sixty years later, in Behemoth or The History ofthe Causes ofthe Civil Wars ofEngland, he maintained that 'the core of rebellion ... are the Universities'. The reasons he gives for this judgement are illuminating: And as the Presbyterians brought with them into their churches their divinity [Calvinism] from the universities, so did many of the gentlemen bring their politics from thence into the Parliament; but neither of them did this very boldly in the time of Queen Elizabeth. And ... certainly the chief leaders were ambitious ministers and ambitious gentlemen; the ministers envying the authority of bishops, whom they thought less learned; and the gentlemen envying the privy-council, whom they thought less wise than themselves. For it is a hard matter for men, who do all think highly of their own wits, when they have also acquired the learning of the university, to be persuaded that they want any ability requisite for the government of a commonwealth, especially having read the glorious histories ... of the ancient popular governments of the Greeks and Romans, amongst whom ... popular government ... passed by the name of liberty. (English Works, vi. 192-3)

What is more, Hobbes's awareness of the dangers in the political situation between 1608 and 1640 was made more acute and immediate by his continuous association with men of considerable power in the state: the Cavendishes, Bacon (who was Lord Chancellor in 1618--Hobbes acted as amanuensis for him in the early 162os), the Earl of Newcastle (another Cavendish), and Sir Gervase Clifton, among others. The political fears and dangers that formed the background against which Hobbes began to write in 1640 are a matter of history. The intellectual background is less accessible, but at least five special influences can be identified. They are: 1. Particularly prior to 1628, when Hobbes's 'young master' died (by then the second Earl of Devonshire), Hobbes had the unusual advantage of free access to the libraries at the great houses of the Cavendishes, Chatsworth and Hardwick Hall. As Hobbes wrote in 1629 in the dedicatXIV

INTRODUCTION

ory letter to his Thucydides, addressed to the third Earl, then only 1o years old, 'For by the experience of many years ... I have this: there was not any, who more really ... favoured those that studied the liberal arts more liberally, than my Lord your father did; nor in whose house, a man should less need the university than in his.' 2. When Hobbes went down from Oxford, he was competent in Latin and Greek. Within a few years, by his own admission, he had become rusty as a consequence of attending to the social affairs of his employers. Some time about 1616 he set about repairing his knowledge. As a result he became able to communicate accurately and with sophistication in the common language of European learning, Latin. His first work published on the Continent, De Cive, and much of his correspondence in the 164os were in that language. His recovery of an expert command of Greek-then a rare accomplishment-shows itself in his distinguished translation of Thucydides published in 1629. 3· As his subsequent references show, Thucydides provided an enduring lesson for Hobbes. The lesson was that Athenian democracy was ultimately incapable of imposing the unity of organization and the continuity of purpose required for the successful prosecution of policies needed for the long-term preservation of the commonwealth; democracy was not a bad, but an inefficient species of sovereign power. 4· Hobbes enjoyed a belated but influential encounter (in about 1628 if Aubrey is correct) with the geometry of Euclid; an encounter which not only led him to a sometimes disastrously misguided practice of the skill, but much more importantly drew his attention to the use of definitions in rigorous argument. In Leviathan he was to call geometry 'the only science that it hath pleased God hitherto to bestow on mankind' (IV. 12; see also V. 7). Be that as it may, geometry was, and remained until the middle of the nineteenth century, the paradigm for deductive probity. 5· It is possible that Hobbes left Oxford with some unfocused awareness that traditional academic instruction was worthless in relation to the new ideas that were appearing on the Continent. It is certain that three extensive visits to Europe with his noble charges (I6Icr-c.r6rs, 1621}-JO, and 1634-6) not only gave him a fluent knowledge of French and some ability in Italian, but also established his unbounded enthusiasm for optics and for the new science of motion. In his travels he met and talked with Galileo and Gassendi, and through friendship with Marin Mersenne established the intellectual connections that were to be so valuable during his long residence in Paris in the 164os. His encounter with questions about the mechanical nature of sensation was particularly influential. According XV

INTRODUCTION

to his own report, written in the third person in 'The Prose Life' (1676), this took place in Paris during his sojourn in 1636/7 when he was there as mentor to the third Earl of Devonshire: When he became aware of the variety of movement contained in the natural world, he first inquired as to the nature of these motions, to determine the ways in which they might effect the senses, the intellect, the imagination, together with the other natural properties. He communicated his findings on a daily basis to the Reverend Father Marin Mersenne, of the Order of the Minim Brothers, a scholar who was venerated as an outstanding exponent of all branches of philosophy. Out of this crucible of influences and skills-acute awareness of political dangers, access to learned men and great libraries, travel, skill in Latin and Greek, the warnings ofThucydides, addiction to geometry and fascination with optics, mechanics, and contemporary theories of sensationemerged, in 1640, Hobbes's first original work, The Elements ofLaw Natural and Politic. It was initially circulated in a number of manuscript copies and eventually printed in 1650 as two separate volumes, Human Nature and De Corpore Politico. At the end of 1640 Hobbes fled to Paris to avoid the impending civil strife in England, and in fear lest the Elements of Law might put him in danger from the warring parties. For although its immediate implication would have been support for the king, it gave final legitimacy to any de facto government. In Paris, and in the stimulating company of Mersenne, Gassendi, eventually Descartes, and others in Mersenne's salon, Hobbes's philosophical writings grew rapidly. In 1642 De Give appeared in Paris (two further Latin editions were published in Amsterdam in 1647, and the English version in London in I6SI). In 1646 he was working on De Corpore, although it was not to be published until 1655· In the same year he became tutor in mathematicspolitics were expressly excluded from his brief-to the future Charles II, then sheltering in Paris. The following summer he suffered a serious illness from which dates the palsy which eventually compelled him to make use of an amanuensis in all his writing. Despite this, Leviathan was written in Paris between about 1648 and r651. The exact commencement and conclusion of the activity cannot be ascertained. But John Aubrey's account of a typical day's work in his later years could easily describe the way Leviathan was written: He rose about seven, had his breakfast of bread and butter; and took his walk, meditating till ten; then he did put down the minute of his thoughts, which he penned in the afternoon ... He was never idle; his thoughts were always XVl

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working ... His dinner was provided for him exactly by eleven ... After dinner he took a pipe of tobacco, and then threw himself immediately on his bed ... and took a nap of about half an hour. In the afternoon he penned his morning thoughts.

Leviathan was published in London in 1651, probably in May, and Hobbes returned to his own country, this time to stay, early in the following year. The return was not entirely what he might have chosen in other circumstances despite being, as he said, minded to go home after so long a sojourn abroad. But Leviathan had offended the Royalists in Paris on account of its 'atheism' and the political ambiguity already noticed in The Elements of Law. It also antagonized the French clerical authorities because of its unsparing attack upon the political claims of the Roman Church. Hobbes felt unsafe. In London, after a wretched journey from France, he made his submission to the Council of State and resumed private life, mainly in the capital, pouring out vigorously controversial works on liberty and necessity, mathematics, Boyle's scientific method, physics (De Corpore), human nature (De Homine), histories, books on law, and latterly translations of Homer. For all his reputed disputatiousness and refusal to admit himself wrong, even when manifestly in error, and despite the violent attacks provoked by the supposed irreligion, moral subversion, and ambiguous political allegiance of Leviathan, Hobbes was a man much befriended by the good and the great. Clarendon liked him despite attacking his ideas. Charles II treated him with a bemused and protective affection once he was king. Aubrey revered him. The Cavendish family befriended him almost throughout his long life. In 1675 Hobbes was still mainly resident in London. But he was 87 years old, and while most of his critics thought it time he departed to a much hotter world, he himself chose merely to retire to a better one in Derbyshire. At Chatsworth he was cherished and sustained by the Cavendish family. In October 1679 he suffered a strangury-a retention ofurine-'1 shall be glad then to find a hole to creep out of the world at.' On about 28 November he suffered a stroke. He died on 4 December at the great age of 91. A broadsheet which circulated in London after his death concluded: Ninety years' eating and immortal Jobs Here MATTER lies, and there's an end of Hobbes!

But it was not. Despite the hostility of politicians, despite angry refutations by countless 6 books and pamphlets, and despite the Convocation of Oxford 6 Not exactly countless. S. I. Mintz, in his outstanding monograph The Hunting of Leviathan, identifies 107 up to the end of the century.

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University, neither ballad-makers, nor divines, nor academics, nor politicians could bury the ideas as nature had ultimately buried the man. The Grand Design in Three Parts

At some time in the early I64os, possibly as early as the writing of The Elements ofLaw (which reads like a first mapping ofthe ideas), Hobbes had conceived a vast design for a systematic account of science and philosophy: a basic or first philosophy (essentially materialism), a natural science (mainly the mechanics of moving bodies), and a human physiology and psychology (based on the mechanics) leading to a moral and political philosophy. In short it was to be an account of'body natural' leading to an account of what in The Elements he calls 'body politic' or, more famously, to an account of the 'artificial man' which is Leviathan. 7 The idea for such a comprehensive philosophy was first announced in De Give, in the Latin 'Preface to the Reader' which Hobbes added in the Amsterdam edition of I 647. In the words of the English version of I 651: I was studying Philosophy for my mind's sake, and I had gathered together its first Elements in all kinds, and having digested them into three Sections by degrees, I thought to have written them so as in the first I would have treated of a body, and its general properties; in the second of man and his special faculties, and affections; in the third, of civil government and the duties of Subjects: Wherefore the first Section would have contained the first Philosophy, and certain elements of Physics; in it we would have considered the reasons of Time, Place, Cause, Power, Relation, Proportion, Quantity, Figure and motion. In the second we would have been conversant about imagination, Memory, intellect, ratiocination, appetite, will, good and evil, honest and dishonest, and the like.

The third section is De Give itself. Part of Hobbes's summary of it in the Preface is also a description of what had already been his main concerns in the chapters XIV-XXIX of The Elements of Law and what, with many additions, would be his central concern in Leviathan. In the words of the De Give Preface: I demonstrate in the first place, that the state of men without civil society (which state we may properly call the state of nature) is nothing else but a mere war of all against all; and in that war all men have equal right unto all things; Next, that all men as soon as they arrive to understanding of this hateful condition, do desire (even nature itself compelling them) to be freed from this misery. But that this 7 Leviathan is the name of the text. 'Leviathan' is Hobbes's name for the organic structure which is the sovereign power and people together. The name is full of associations. See note to p. 7 of the text.

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cannot be done except by compact, they all quit that right which they have unto all things. Furthermore I declare, and confirm what the nature of compacts is; how and by what means the right of one might be transferred unto another to make their compacts valid; also what rights, and to whom they must necessarily be granted for the establishing of Peace, I mean what those dictates of reason arc, which may properly be termed the Laws of Nature.

In De Corpore, I. 9, a part of the work written about the same time as the Preface to De Cive, but not published until 1655, Hobbes describes a very similar progression of philosophy and science, but in different terms: The principal parts of philosophy are two. For two chief kinds of bodies, and very different from one another, offer themselves to such as search after their generation and properties; one whereof being the work of nature, is called a natural body, the other is called a commonwealth, and is made by the wills and agreement of men. And from these spring the two parts of philosophy, called natural and civil. But seeing that, for the knowledge of the properties of a commonwealth, it is necessary first to know the dispositions, affections, and the manners of men, civil philosophy is again commonly divided into two parts, whereof one, which treats of men's dispositions and manners, is called ethics; and the other, which takes cognizance of their civil duties, is called politics, or simply civil philosophy. In the first place, therefore (after I have set down such premises as appertain to the nature of philosophy in general), I will discourse of bodies natural; in the second, of the dispositions and manners of men; and in the third, of the civil duties of subjects.

From this outline it will be evident that even if Hobbes had never written Leviathan, much of its content would have been conveyed in one way or another by his other works, particularly if The Elements ofLaw and De Give are read as a whole. What Hobbes did in Leviathan, under the pressure of urgent concern about the civil and religious wars in England, was to produce a brilliant additional statement of his ideas, complete in itself, but sustained by the substructure of his philosophical system. 8 The focus of 8 Hobbes did complete his systematic 'three sections' of philosophy, but not in their logical order. Taking the proposed logical order as a pattern, his publications, including Leviathan, complete it as follows: FIRST PHILOSOPHY, (a) philosophy in general: Elements ofLaw, chs. 1-VI; De Corpore, chs. I-VI; White's De Mundo Examined, chs. I and XXX (not published until 1976), Leviathan, IV. (b) BODY or BODY NATURAL: De Corpore, chs. VII-XXX, with numerous sections concerning mathematics and geometry. (The account of body natural is largely taken for granted in Leviathan.) MAN: Elements of Law, chs. VII-XIII; De Homine (which also includes much material on optics), Leviathan, VI-XI. COMMONWEALTH or BODY POLITIC (including the thesis that 'man by nature is in a state of war' and the Laws of Nature): Elements of Law, chs. XIV-XXIX; De Give, chs. I-XIV, Leviathan, XII-XXXI. Matters arising, (a) because woven into the fabric of the body politic,

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attention of the new work was an analysis of the breakdown in civil society, and the construction of a political philosophy that would obviate the causes of such a breakdown. The Structure of Leviathan

The main outline of Hobbes's thesis in Leviathan can be stated briefly. He states it himself at the end of Part 2 (XXXI. I and s). 9 1t is first argued that human nature is commonly concerned with self-preservation, and with the attaining of whatever each individual holds to be his or her personal and individual good. Given that human nature usually functions in this way, then its unrestrained outcome will be a miserable conflict of isolated individuals, each taking what he can get. Hobbes calls this the 'state of war'. However, human beings have the sagacity to discern what articles of peace (or 'laws of nature') have to be enforced in order to avoid the state of war of each against every man. But it is usually unsafe or disadvantageous for individuals to be bound by these articles unless everyone else is at the same time similarly bound. This binding of all to observe the laws of nature is achieved by a compact in which each gives up the right of nature (to do whatever he or she wants at any given moment) to a sovereign power in a civil society. The sovereign enforces the laws of nature, and all that follows from that. The rest of Leviathan is concerned with defining religious, legal, and constitutional structures which will sustain the sovereign power in a peaceful and secure body politic, rather than lead to the breakdowns Hobbes had experienced. A similar thesis had earlier been set out by Hobbes in The Elements of Law. There is in both books a preliminary attempt to relate a basic mechanic of body and motion to sensation, and sensation to the push-pull of desires and aversions. There is in both a consequential analysis of what unconstrained human beings in fact are, and how they function. There is an account of the state of war: what life would be like if human beings acted in accordance with the natures they really have. There is in both books an account of the rational precepts (or 'laws of nature') we have to adopt if we (or BODY SPIRITUAL): Elements of Law, chs. XI, XXV, and XXVI; De Give, chs. XV-XVIII, Leviathan, XII, XXXII-XLVII; (b) because a major philosophical dispute arising from the nature of man: LIBERTY and NECESSITY: touched upon in Elements of Law and De Give, extensively examined in the controversy with Bishop Bramhall Of Liberty and Necessity (1654) and Questions concerning Liberty, Necessity and Chance (1656), touched upon in Leviathan. ' If a chapter and paragraph reference is given without the title of the work attached, the reference will be to the present text of Leviathan.

RELIGION

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are to avoid the state of war. There is an account of how the end, peace, can be attained if each man yields some of his natural freedom to a common power, a sovereign. Finally, but much more extensively in Leviathan, there is an account of how the forces that destroy the body politic can be restrained: particularly the forces of religion. Before examining some of the details in this structure, it should be noted that in Leviathan Hobbes virtually takes for granted both a fundamental ontological position, a form of materialism which I shall call 'one-world realism', and a philosophical method which might be called 'argument by definition'. One-World Realism Hobbes's fundamental ontology is that the constituents of the universe are 'imagined space', that which may be filled, and which appears to be external to us (De Corpore, VII. z), together with something, body, which is 'that, which having no dependence upon our thought, is coincident or coextended with some part of space', and so fills 'that which some call real space' (De Corpore, VIII. 1). Given this ontology, it is further taken as evident that bodies move, 10 and that they have other related features such as solidity which result in the mechanical communication of motion. Although Hobbes has somewhat greater concern with problems about perception-how the 'external' world relates to each person's 'internal' experience-his fundamental position is essentially the same as the ancient archetype of unified materialism to be found in Democritus and Epicurus. Thus in the 'Letter to Herodotus' Epicurus maintained that: The whole of being consists of bodies and space. For the existence of bodies is everywhere attested by sense itself, and it is upon sensation that reason must rely when it attempts to infer the unknown from the known. And if there were no space (which we call also void, and place, and intangible nature), bodies would have nothing in which to be and through which to move, as they are plainly seen to move. Beyond bodies and space there is nothing which by mental apprehension or on its analogy we can conceive to exist. 11

Hobbes's own emphatic statement of an almost identical position is in Leviathan, XXXIV. 2, and again in XLVI. 15: 10 The movement Hobbes (and of course Galileo) is concerned with is the reversal of the principle of Aristotle's that bodies are at rest unless something moves them. Hobbes is closer to the Epicurean premiss that everything moves unless something stops the motion. His account of the law of inertia is in De Corpore, VIII. 19. See also Leviathan, II. 2. 11 See John Gaskin (ed.), The Epicurean Philosophers (London and Vermont, 1995), 14. For Lucretius' treatment of the same topic see De Rerum Natura, Book I, lines J2't-35 and 430-48: ibid. 95 and 97.

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the universe, that is, the whole mass of all things that are ... is corporeal, that is to say, body; and hath the dimensions of magnitude, namely, length, breadth, and depth: also every part of body, is likewise body, and hath the like dimensions; and consequently every part of the universe, is body, and that which is not body, is no part of the universe: and because the universe is all, that which is no part of it, is nothing; and consequently nowhere.

Such an ontology was unproblematic for the Epicureans. For them the human soul is a mortal part of the human body, the gods (who anyway have no concern for us or awareness of us) exist as the most rarefied ofbodies in inter-mundane space, and things move of themselves because of the inherent movement of their constituent particles. But Hobbes cannot reach exactly these conclusions in the context of the Christianity he was required to affirm, and which would certainly cause him to be punished here and now if he did not affirm it. Nevertheless his argument in Leviathan goes an astonishingly long way towards affirming a species of theistic materialism. Spirits are bodies of a sort. The soul is life. God is corporeal. I will call this meta-philosophy, whether Epicurean or Hobbesian, one-world realism. It is one-world because it explicitly excludes any other order of being: all that is has to be explained within one system. It is realism because it both minimizes philosophical problems concerning the relation between 'external' and 'internal' experience, and because it excludes as unreal all that is not of this, the natural, world. Hobbes does indeed retain and use the term 'supernatural', but it is in order to indicate an epistemological distinction between scientific knowledge and the way in which God 'speaks' or conveys a revelation to a few, and only a very few people. The supernatural is a rare source of extraordinary knowledge, not an order of being metaphysically distinct from this one. (See III. 7; VIII. 22; XII. 19, 22, 24; XV. 8; XXIX. 8; XXXIV. 20, et al.) Why does Hobbes so comprehensively adhere to one-world realism? Because it does away with the 'insignificant speech' of the despised academic theologians, because it fits in with ordinary sense experience, because it is and was to remain the foundation of the explanatory success of the new post-Aristotelian sciences, and because it lends itself to the whole sweep of argument in Leviathan that connects body natural with body politic, and religion (matters concerning body spiritual) with both. Argument by Definition

The process of definition is rooted in Hobbes's account of language, given briefly in Leviathan, IV, and also in Elements ofLaw, V. In simple terms he xxn

INTRODUCTION

regards language as names added together by association. Each name 'is the voice of a man, arbitrarily imposed, for a mark to bring to his mind some conception [image, idea, or understanding] concerning the thing on which it is imposed' (Elements, V. 2). His later account in De Corpore, II. 4, makes it clear that the mark must somehow bring to our minds a shared conception. Language is between people, not distinct for each person. But, on occasions, it is necessary to be particularly clear about exactly what conception a compounded name brings to mind. (A compounded name is one which contains several conceptions, as 'bird' contains the conceptions 'bipedal', 'beaked', 'feathered', etc. On Hobbes's showing most names will be compounded and therefore capable of such analytical explication.) Or it may be necessary to introduce a new compounded name to unite conceptions previously separated (for example, 'endeavour' as introduced by Hobbes in Leviathan, VI. I, and in De Corpore, XV. 2). Or it may be necessary, especially when teaching or communicating knowledge, to separate a compounded name into its component conceptions so that the compounded name is more clearly conceived than before. Leviathan, X, has a cluster of such compounded names unpacked into their components as part of Hobbes's explication of the passions. In such cases definitions of names are used for analysis, clarification, or the introduction of new names. Apart from certain technical requirements (for which see De Corpore, VI. IJ-I9), the primary requirements of a definition are that it should be clear and agreed. To be clear and agreed, the definition must 'resolve' the word to be defined in such a way that the receiver of the definition has conceptions called to mind by the names used in the definition which are similar to, but clearer than, the conception he originally had of the compounded name being defined. The definition must also convey the same conception to the receiver of the definition as it does to the giver of the definition; a requirement which, we should note, cannot be known to be satisfied until later use shows agreement in the way in which the defined term is being employed. In Leviathan Hobbes often, but not always, signals the definition of a term by means of capital letters for the word(s) defined. The first example is SENSE (I. 2), the next IMAGINATION (II. 2), and there are scores more in the text. He is inclined to claim that he is merely reporting common usage in his definitions, as when he says in the summary of his arguments in XXXII. I that he has drawn conclusions 'from definitions ... universally agreed on'. But it is evident that he sometimes introduces new terms by means of them ('endeavour' is an obvious example) or, much more XXlll

INTRODUCTION

contentiously, subtly adjusts the conceptions a compounded name brings to mind (e.g. 'life' defined as motion) so that the adjusted conceptions can later be used in a surprising or reductionist way, or to subvert conventional conclusions. A further caveat about Hobbes's method of argument by definition is that it can produce apparently substantial and certainly alarming conclusions which are true in virtue of the meaning of the terms used and hence true without reference to new observation or experience. A critical example is the way in which he uses definitions of 'good' and 'voluntary' to produce the conclusion that one's own good is the object of all voluntary action (see below). So Hobbes uses definitions for clarity, for quasi-geometrical rigour, to introduce new terms, and to adjust our conceptions of familiar terms in ways which will make them consistent with the unified philosophical objective worked out in the details of Leviathan to apply to the body natural, the body politic, and the body spiritual. Leviathan: Some Problems in the Anatomy Leviathan argues with such sustained rigour, and with such a concentration of historical, political, scientific, legal, linguistic, theological, and biblical information, that book-length discussion is in some respects easier than the brief comments possible within an introduction. Nevertheless, certain items are too crucial, too obtrusive, or too controversial to be ignored in any treatment. Some of these are noted below in the sort of order in which they are likely to be encountered in the text. I say 'sort of order' because matter concerned directly or indirectly with God and religion occupies roughly half of the whole book, and my beginning with God and religious language, and ending with the religious conscience and religious power as it impinges upon the body politic, is to some extent arbitrary. God, the Soul, and Insignificant Speech Whether Hobbes within himself believed in God and personal immortality, and in what way, and with what qualifications, is not decisively ascertainable from his published or surviving private writing. But the problem for him was that if he did not believe (or only believed in a very unorthodox way), other people did believe, and the circumstances of his time-social pressures and specific laws against heresy and atheismobliged him to maintain in public that he believed, and that his belief was orthodox. The trouble was that his commitment to what I have called oneworld realism made the commonest verbal expressions of orthodox belief literally insignificant according to his view of significance. XXIV

INTRODUCTION

According to Hobbes, we know that 'there must be ... one first mover; that is, a first, and an eternal cause of all things; which is that which men mean by the name of God' (XII. 6), and again 'ofnecessity 12 he must come to this thought at last, that there is some cause, whereof there is no former cause, but is eternal; which is it men call God' (XL 25). The same thought occurs elsewhere in Hobbes's works, for example in Elements of Law, XI. 2. But in the parallel passage in the Elements the negativity of Hobbes's account of deity could scarcely be more clearly stated: Forasmuch as God Almighty is incomprehensible, it followeth that we can have no conception or image of the Deity; and consequently all his attributes signify our inability and defect of power to conceive any thing concerning his nature, and not any conception of the same, excepting only this: that there is a God.

The details of this negative theology are unpacked in Leviathan, XXXI. 14-28, but the conclusion appears earlier on: 'Whatsoever we imagine, is finite. Therefore there is no idea, or conception of any thing we call infinite ... And therefore the name of God is used, not to make us conceive him ... but that we may honour him' (Ill. 12). Such negative theology (often allied with versions offideism) is a recognizable strand in Christian thinking, but in Hobbes it seems to go uncomfortably far, so far that many of the ways in which God is spoken to and about lose their normal significance. Thus in the Elements, XI. 3: And whereas we attribute to God Almighty, seeing, hearing, speaking, knowing, loving, and the like; by which names we understand something in the men to whom we attribute them, we understand nothing by them in the nature of God. (Cf. Leviathan, XXXVI. 9.)

But this highly restrictive characterization of the language we can significantly use in talk about God is only part ofthe problem Hobbes creates for orthodox religion. 12 In the work unpublished in his lifetime, White's De Mundo Examined, Hobbes somewhat qualifies his published view that the existence of God can be taken as 'necessary' or in some way proved. In the unpublished work he takes 'demonstrable truth' in the narrow sense of logically demonstrable, i.e. the formal consequences of proposition(s) in subject-predicate form. In that sense God's existence is not demonstrable. Thus in XXVI. 2 he remarks: 'For someone to prove that something exists, there is need of the senses, or experience ... Under these circumstances there is no doubt that those who declare that they will show that God exists ... act unphilosophically.' Hobbes further defends this failure of proof by appeal to a quasi-fideistic position long recognized by Christianity: 'When a demonstration persuades us of the truth of any proposition, that is no longer faith, but is natural knowledge', therefore the more philosophical proof progresses, the more religion is weakened (XXVI. 4).

XXV

INTRODUCTION

Granted that Hobbes's appeal to the argument from a regress of causal explanations establishes the basic proposition that God exists (without allowing us to say any more than this about Him, Her, or It), one common and arguably orthodox answer to the question in what way God exists, is that God exists other than as composed of the material that in a gathered form makes up the bodies that exist in the universe. God is a universal bodiless spirit. In a more philosophical phrase, God is an 'immaterial substance', not identifiable with the world or any part of it. Now, while Hobbes clearly affirms that God and the world are not identical (e.g. Leviathan, XXXI. 15), he also affirms with equal clarity and greater frequency that 'immaterial substance' (and cognate phrases) are without any signification. 13 Such locutions, he maintains, are like trying to explain what something is by calling it a bodiless body, or describing the shape of something as a round square. A very similar problem of insignificant speech attaches to the way in which we often try to think (i.e. use words) about human souls: But the opinion that such spirits were incorporeal, or immaterial, could never enter into the mind of any man by nature; because, though men may put together words of contradictory signification, as spirit, and incorporeal; yet they can never have the imagination of any thing answering to them. (XII. 7)

The solution, and Hobbes vigorously argues that it is consistent with the real meaning of all the relevant scriptural passages, is that both God and human souls are spirits corporeal: that is to say entities which are not accessible to the senses but are within the compass of one-world realism. Criticized concerning this matter in Bramhall's The Catching of the Leviathan (1658), Hobbes replied unequivocally in An Answer to Bishop Bramhall (written about 1668, but not published until 1682) that God is corporeal: 'To his Lordship's question here: What I leave God to be? I answer, I leave him to be a most pure, simple, invisible spirit corporeal. By corporeal I mean a substance that has magnitude ... ' (English Works, iv. 313), and 'Spirit is thin, fluid, transparent, invisible body' (ibid. 309). In another flourish Hobbes makes clear that his rejection of insignificant formulas does not carry with it a rejection of mystery in biblical religion: When the nature of the thing is incomprehensible, I can acquiesce in the Scripture: but when the signification of words is incomprehensible, I cannot acquiesce in the authority of a Schoolman. (Ibid. 314)

Thus Hobbes asserts the minimum proposition God exists. He rejects as 13

See Leviathan, IV. 24; VIII. 27; XII. 7; XLIV. 16; XLV. 2, eta!. XXVI

INTRODUCTION

insignificant speech the commonest notion of how God's existence can be characterized, and he affirms God's existence as something within the conceptual scope of one-world realism. He argues that this novel (but quasi-Epicurean) view is consistent with scriptural sources, is indeed their real meaning. He asserts an analogous minimalism about human souls: 'The soul in scripture, signifieth always, either the life, or the living creature; and the body and soul jointly, the body alive' (XLIV. 15). But life is defined in his Introduction as 'but a motion of limbs', and again 'life itself is but motion' (VI. 58). Hence, if the soul is to be described at all, it must be described as a corporeal spirit because only what is corporeal can move. But in Ch. XXXVIII, when writing about resurrection and eternal life, Hobbes is even more restrictive about souls than he is about what we can significantly say concerning God: That the soul of man is in its own nature eternal, and a living creature independent on the body; or that any mere man is immortal, otherwise than by the resurrection in the last day ... is a doctrine not apparent in Scripture. (XXXVIII. 4)

And his account of resurrection, heavily emphasizing the credal and Pauline resurrection of the body, is not a rising upwards to the life of an empyrean heaven, but to a new life on earth, for as long as the earth lasts. It could even be argued that if and when the fit between biblical religion and the one-world realism of the new sciences breaks down, Hobbes has in reserve a separation between philosophy and science on the one hand, and religion on the other. But it is a suspect separation. It is hinted at in the phrase quoted above: 'When the nature of the thing is incomprehensible ... '.It is officially stated in De Corpore, I. 8, where Hobbes remarks: '[Philosophy] excludes theology, I mean the doctrine of God, eternal, ingenerable, incomprehensible, and in whom there is nothing neither to divide nor compound, nor any generation to be conceived.' But here what is identified as theology and excluded from philosophy and science is precisely the insignificant speech he attacks in Leviathan. Although Hobbes may have been a sincere reformer in his proposals about how we should understand God and the soul, most of his contemporaries thought that he was not sincere, or if sincere was in serious error. Even now his account of the corporeal spirit which is God looks as if it would be more easily satisfied by whatever, for example, radio waves are, or whatever gravity is, than by the personal agent characterized in traditional Christianity. On the other hand his biblical exegesis now looks remarkably modern; partly, one suspects, because it is among the first XXVII

INTRODUCTION

attempts to do what so many would now try to do, namely read the Bible in a way which makes it compatible with the one-world realism of successful modern science. Human Nature

In Leviathan, VI. r, Hobbes employs a conventional distinction between 'vital' motions and 'animal' or 'voluntary' motions. 14 Vital motions are the involuntary movements of the body performed as part of the process of being alive-heartbeats, breathing, bowel movements, and so on. Animal motions are voluntary motions including speaking, eating, and most movements of our limbs. Now, Hobbes explains, 'sense, is motion in the organs and interior parts of man's body, caused by the action of the things we see, hear, etc.' This motion is conveyed as endeavour, via the nerves, to the brain. (Endeavour is motion too minute or too quick to be observable.) At the brain-and here the account in Leviathan has to be augmented-the motion does not stop, 'but proceeding to the heart, of necessity must there either help or hinder that motion which is called vital' (Elements of Law, VII. r). If it assists the vital motions, a feeling of pleasure occurs. If it retards them, a feeling of pain occurs. Pleasure is provocation to move towards that which causes the pleasure; pain is provocation to move away. The internal beginning of such animal movement is endeavour, and is felt as appetite (desire or love) or as aversion (fear or hatred). Such endeavours show themselves in animal movements towards or away from the object, and: whatsoever is the object of any man's appetite or desire; that is it, which he for his part calleth good: and the object of his hate, and aversion, evil ... For these words of good, evil ... are ever used with relation to the person that useth 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 representeth it. . . (VI. 7)

Thus a mechanistic connection is established between the 'first philosophy' of body and motion, and human nature and behaviour. We are all, as a matter of fact, if Hobbes is right, physically wired up to respond in certain ways to the stimuli of certain movements, and we use our personal or egocentric language of good and evil according to the way the wires pull. But because of the way in which Hobbes has defined 'voluntary' and ,. The same distinction, for the same purposes, is deployed in Elements of Law, VII. and De Corpore, XXV. 1-4. XXV Ill

1-2,

INTRODUCTION

'will' (VI. 53), all voluntary actions (which are not directed by fear) will by definition be directed towards what is desired, that is, towards what each person in isolation calls his or her internally perceived good. Thus Hobbes draws (and often draws) the conclusion that 'of the voluntary [i.e. willed] acts of every man, the object is some good to himself' (XIV. 8, see also XV. 4; XV. 16; XIX. 9; XXVII. 8). The same conclusion appears in Elements of Law, 'every man's end being some good to himself' (XXIV. 4), and again, emphatically, in De Cive: for every man is desirous of what is good for him, and shuns what is evil, but chiefly the chiefest of natural evils, which is death; and this he doth, by a certain impulsion of nature, no less than that whereby a stone moves downward. (I. 7) But here, it will be noticed, there is more emphasis on the 'selfish hypotheses' (as Hume called it) or 'psychological egoism' (as it is sometimes now called) as a natural fact. We are subject to 'the impulsion of nature'. The peculiarity of treating this alleged natural fact as true by definition (the way in which Hobbes usually treats it) is that it actually weakens the force of the fact. This is because most people find that matter-Uperstitious fear of spirits were taken away, and with it, prognostics from dreams, false prophecies, and many other things depending thereon, by which, crafty ambitious persons abuse the simple people, men would be much [8] more fitted than they are for civil obedience. 9. And this ought to be the work of the schools: but they rather nourish such doctrine. For (not knowing what imagination, or the senses are), what they receive, they teach: some saying, that imaginations rise of themselves, and have no cause: others that they rise most commonly from the will; and that good thoughts are blown (inspired) into a man, by God; and evil thoughts by the Devil: or that good thoughts are poured (infused) into a man, by God, and evil ones by the Devil. Some say the senses receive the species of things, and deliver them to the common sense; and the common sense delivers them over to the fancy, and the fancy to the memory, and the memory to the judgment, like handing of things from one to another, with many words making nothing understood. 10. The imagination that is raised in man (or any other creature Understanding. 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 the 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.

CHAPTER III OF THE CONSEQUENCE OR TRAIN OF IMAGINATIONS*

1. BY Consequence, or TRAIN of thoughts, I understand that succession of one thought to another, which is called (to distinguish it from discourse in words) mental discourse. 2. When a man thinketh on any thing whatsoever, his next thought after, is not altogether so casual as it seems to be. Not every thought to every thought succeeds indifferently.* But as we have no IS

PART I

OF MAN

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, relics of those made in the sense: and those motions that immediately 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 [9] next; only this is certain, it shall be something that succeeded the same before, at one time or another. Train of 3. This train of thoughts, or mental discourse, is of two sorts. thoughts The first is unguided, without design, and inconstant; wherein there is unguided. 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 [unrelated] one to another, as in a dream. Such arc 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 oft-times 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 thought 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 30 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. 4. The second is more constant; as being regulated by some deTrain of thoughts sire, and design. For the impression made by such things as we regulated. 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 16

OF MAN

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3

sleep. From desire, ariseth the thought of some means we have seen produce the like of that which 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. And because the end, by the greatness of the impression, comes often to mind, in case our thoughts begin to wander, they are quickly again reduced into the way: which observed by one of the seven wise men,* made him give men this precept, which is now worn out, Respice finem; that is to say, in all your actions, look often upon what you would have, as the thing that directs all your thoughts in the way to attain it. 5. The 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 any thing 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 called sagacitas, and solertia; a [10] hunting out of the causes, of some effect, present or past; or of the effects, of some present or past cause. Sometimes a man seeks what he hath lost; and from that place, and time, wherein he misses it, his mind runs back, from place to place, and time to time, to find where, and when he had it; that is to say, to find some certain, and limited time and place, in which to begin a method of seeking. Again, from thence, his thoughts run over the same places and times, to find what action, or other occasion might make him lose it. This we call remembrance, or calling to mind: the Latins call it reminiscentia, as it Remembrance. were a re-conning of our former actions. 6. Sometimes a man knows a place determinate, within the compass whereof he is to seek; and then his thoughts run over all the parts thereof, in the same manner, as one would sweep a room, to find a jewel; or as a spaniel ranges the field,* till he find a scent; or as a man should run over the alphabet, to start a rhyme. 7. Sometimes a man desires to know the event of an action; and Prudence. then he thinketh of some like action past, and the events thereof one after another; supposing like events will follow like actions. As he 17

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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. Signs. 8. A sign is the evident antecedent, of the consequent; and contrarily, the consequent of the antecedent, when the like consequences have been observed, before: and the oftener they have been observed, the less uncertain is the sign. And therefore he that has most experience in any kind of business, has most signs, whereby to guess at the future time; and consequently is the most prudent: and so much more prudent than he that is new in that kind of business, as not to be equalled by any advantage of natural and extemporary wit: though perhaps many young men think the contrary. 9. Nevertheless it is not prudence that distinguisheth man from [11] beast. There be beasts, that at a year old observe more, and pursue that which is for their good, more prudently, than a child can do at ten. Conjecture of 10. As prudence is a presumption of the future, contracted from the time past. the experience of time past: so there is a presumption of things past taken from other things (not future but) past also. For he that hath seen by what courses and degrees, a flourishing state hath first come into civil war, and then to ruin; upon the sight of the ruins of any

OF MAN

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3

other state, will guess, the like war, and the like courses have been there also. But this conjecture, has the same uncertainty almost with the conjecture of the future; both being grounded only upon expenence. 11. 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. 12. 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 things 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 unconceivable;) but that we may honour him. Also because whatsoever (as I said before,) 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 endued with some determinate magnitude; and which may be divided into parts; nor 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, or 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.

19

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[12]

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CHAPTER IV OF SPEECH

Original of

speech.

1. THE invention of printing, 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 Phoenicia. 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 connexion; 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 further 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. 2. But all this language gotten, and augmented by Adam and his posterity, was again lost at the Tower of Babel, when by the hand of God, every man was stricken for his rebellion, with an oblivion of his former language. And being hereby forced to 20

OF MAN

CHAP.

4

disperse themselves into several parts of the world, it must needs be, that the diversity of tongues that now is, proceeded by degrel!s from them, in such manner, as need (the mother of all inventions) taught them; and in tract oftime grew everywhere more copious. 3. The general use of speech, is to transfer our mental discourse, into verbal; or the train of our thoughts, into a train of words; and that for two commodities; whereof one is, the registering of the consequences of our thoughts; which being apt to slip out of our memory, and put us to a new labour, may again be recalled, by such words as they were marked by. So that the first use of names, is to serve for marks, or notes of remembrance. Another is, when many use the same words, to signify (by their connexion and order,) one to another, what they conceive, or think of each matter; and also what they desire, fear, or have any other passion for. And for this use they are called signs. Special uses of speech are these; first, to register, what by cogitation, we find to be the cause of any thing, present or past; and what we find things present or past may produce, or effect: which in sum, is acquiring of arts. Secondly, to show to others that knowledge which we have attained; which is, to counsel, and teach one another. Thirdly, to make known to others our wills, and purposes, that we may have the mutual help of one another. Fourthly, to please and delight ourselves, and others, by playing with our words, for pleasure or ornament, innocently. 4. To these uses, there are also four correspondent abuses. First, when men register their thoughts wrong, by the inconstancy of the signification of their words; by which they register for their conceptions, that which they never conceived; and so deceive themselves. Secondly, when they use words metaphorically; that is, in other sense than that they are ordained for; and thereby deceive others. Thirdly, when by words they declare that to be their will, which is not. Fourthly, when they use them to grieve one another: for seeing nature hath armed living creatures, some with teeth, some with horns, and some with hands, to grieve an enemy, it is but an abuse of speech, to grieve him with the tongue, unless it be one whom we are obliged to govern; and then it is not to grieve, but to correct and amend. 5. 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. 21

The use of speech.

[13]

Abuses of speech.

PART I

OF MAN

Names proper 6. Of names, some are proper, and singular to one only thing; {5 common. as Peter, John, this man, this tree: and some are common to many

things; as man, horse, tree; every of which though but one name, is nevertheless the name of divers particular things; in respect of all Universal. 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. 7. 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. 8. And of names universal, some are of more, and some of less extent; the larger comprehending the less large: and some again of equal extent, comprehending each other reciprocally. As for example, the name body is of larger signification than the word man, and comprehendeth it; and the names man and rational, are of [14] equal extent, comprehending mutually one another. But here we must take notice, that by a name is not always understood, as in grammar, one only word; but sometimes by circumlocution many words together. For all these words, he that in his actions observeth the laws of his country, make but one name, equivalent to this one word, just.

9. 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, (such, as 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 22

OF MAN

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4

equal to two right angles. 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. 10. 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, 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 proceeded, 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 has 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 reckonings whereof are necessary to the being, or well-being of mankind. 11. When two names are joined together into a consequence, or affirmation; as thus, a man is a living creature; or thus, if he be a man, he 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; otherwisefolse. For true and false are attributes [15] of speech, not of things. And where speech is not, there is neither truth nor folsehood. 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. 12. Seeing then that truth consisteth in the right ordering of Necessity of names in our affirmations, a man that seeketh precise truth, had definitions. 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;* the more he struggles, the more belimed. And therefore in geometry, (which is the only science that it hath 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.

23

PART I

OF MAN

13. 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, where they are negligently set down; or to make them himself. 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. 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 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 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, or a Thomas, or any other doctor whatsoever, if but a man.* Subject to 14. Subject to names, is whatsoever can enter into, or be connames. sidered in an account; and be added one to another to make a sum; or subtracted one from another and leave a remainder. The Latins [16] called accounts of money rationes, and accounting, ratiocinatio: and that which we in bills or books of account call items, they called nomina; that is, 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 A.6yo;-, for both speech and

OF MAN

CHAP.

4

reason; not that they thought there was :to speech without reason; but no reasoning without speech: and the act of reasoning they called syllogism; which signifieth summing up of the consequences of one saying to another. And because the same things may enter into account for divers accidents; their names are (to show that diversity) diversely wrested, and diversified. This diversity of names may be reduced to four general heads. 15. First, a thing may enter into account for matter, or body; as living, sensible, rational, hot, cold, moved, quiet; with all which names the word matter, or body, is understood; all such, being names of matter. 16. Secondly, it may enter into account, or be considered, for some accident or quality, which we conceive to be in it; as for being moved, for being so long, for being hot, &c; and then, of the name of the thing itself, by a little change or wresting, we make a name for that accident, which we consider; and for living put into the account life; for moved, motion; for hot, heat; for long, length, and the like: and all such names, are the names of the accidents and properties, by which one matter, and body is distinguished from another. These are called names abstract; because severed (not from matter, but) from the account of matter. 17. Thirdly, we bring into account, the properties of our own bodies, whereby we make such distinction: as when anything is seen by us, we reckon not the thing itself; but the sight, the colour, the idea of it in the fancy: and when anything is heard, we reckon it not; but the hearing, or sound only, which is our fancy or conception of it by the ear: and such are names of fancies. 18. Fourthly, we bring into account, consider, and give names to, names themselves, and to speeches: for general, universal, special, equivocal, are names of names. And affirmation, interrogation, commandment, narration, syllogism, sermon, oration, and many other such, are names of speeches. And this is all the variety of names positive; which are put to mark somewhat which is in nature, or may be feigned by the mind of man, as bodies that are, or may be conceived to be; or of bodies, the properties that are, or may be feigned to be; or words and speech. 19. There be also other names, called negative; which are notes to signify that a word is not the name of the thing in question; as these words nothing, no man, infinite, indocible [unteachable], three want four, and the like; which are nevertheless of use in reckoning, or in

25

Use of names positive.

Negative names with their uses.

PART I

OF MAN

correcting of reckoning; and call to mind our past cogitations, though they be not names of any thing; because they make us refuse to admit of names not rightly used. Words 20. All other names are but insignificant sounds; and those of two inszgnificant. sorts. One, when they are new, and yet their meaning not explained [17] by definition; whereof there have been abundance coined by Schoolmen, and puzzled philosophers. 21. Another, when men make a name of two names, whose significations are contradictory and inconsistent; as this name, an incorporeal body, or (which is all one) an incorporeal substance, and a great number more. For whensoever any affirmation is false, the two names of which it is composed, put together and made one, signify nothing at all. For example, if it be a false affirmation to say a quadrangle is round, the word round quadrangle signifies nothing; but is a mere sound. So likewise, if it be false, to say that virtue can be poured, or blown up and down, the words inpoured virtue, inblown virtue, are as absurd and insignificant, as a round quadrangle. And therefore you shall hardly meet with a senseless and insignificant word, that is not made up of some Latin or Greek names. A Frenchman seldom hears our Saviour called by the name of parole, but by the name of verbe often; yet verbe and parole differ no more, but that one is Latin, the other French. Understanding. 22. When a man upon the hearing of any speech, hath those thoughts which the words of that speech, and their connexion, were ordained and constituted to signify; then he is said to understand it; understanding being nothing else but conception* caused by speech. And therefore if speech be peculiar to man (as for aught I know it is,) then is understanding peculiar to him also. And therefore of absurd and false affirmations, in case they be universal, there can be no understanding; though many think they understand, then, when they do but repeat the words softly, or con them in their mind. 23. What kinds of speeches signify the appetites, aversions, and passions of man's mind; and of their use and abuse, I shall speak when I have spoken of the passions. Inconstant 24. The names of such things as affect us, that is, which please, names. 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 discourses of men, of inconstant signification. For seeing all names are imposed to signify our conceptions; and all our affections are but

26

OF MAN

CHAP.

5

conceptions; when we conceive the same things 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 every thing 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 called 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 [figures] of speech: but these are less dangerous, because they profess their inconstancy; which the other do not.

CHAPTER V OF REASON AND SCIENCE

1. WHEN a man reasoneth, he does nothing else but conceive a sum Reason wha total, from addition of parcels; or conceive a remainder, from sub- it is. traction of one sum from another: which (if it be done by words,) is [18] conceiving of the consequence from the names of all the parts, to the name of the whole; or from the names of the whole and one part, to the name of the other part. And though in some things, (as in numbers,) besides adding and subtracting, men name other operations, as multiplying and dividing; yet they are the same; for multiplication, is but adding together of things equal; and division, but subtracting of one thing, as often as we can. These operations are not incident to numbers only, but to all manner of things that can be added together, and taken one out of another. For as arithmeticians teach to add and subtract in numbers; so the geometricians teach the same in lines,jigures (solid and superficial,) angles, proportions, times, degrees of swiftness, force, power, and the like; the logicians teach the same in consequences of words; adding together two names, to make an affirmation; and two affirmations, to make a syllogism; and many syllogisms to make a demonstration;

27

PART I

OF MAN

and from the sum, or conclusion of a syllogism, they subtract one proposition, to find the other. Writers of politics, add together pactions [contracts] to find men's duties; and lawyers, laws, andfacts, to find what is right and wrong in the actions of private men. In sum, in what matter soever there is place for addition and subtraction, there also is place for reason; and where these have no place, there reason has nothing at all to do. Reason 2. Out of all which we may define, (that is to say determine,) defined. what that is, which is meant by this word reason, when we reckon it amongst the faculties of the mind. For REASON, in this sense, 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, when we demonstrate, or approve our reckonings to other men. Right reason 3. And as in arithmetic, unpractised men must, and professors where. 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 one 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 [19] controversy in an account, the parties must by their own accord, set up for right reason, the reason of some arbitrator, or judge, to whose sentence they will both stand, or their controversy must either come to blows, or be undecided, for want of a right reason constituted by nature; so is it also 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 suite 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: bewraying [revealing] their want of right reason, by the claim they lay to it.

z8

OF MAN

CHAP.

5

4. The use and end of reason, is not the finding of the sum, and truth of one, or a few consequences, remote from the first definitions, and settled significations of names; but to begin at these; and proceed from one consequence to another. For there can be no certainty of the last conclusion, without a certainty of all those affirmations and negations, on which it was grounded, and inferred. As when a master of a family, in taking an account, casteth up the sums of all the bills of expense, into one sum; and not regarding how each bill is summed up, by those that give them in account; nor what it is he pays for; he advantages himself no more, than if he allowed the account in gross, trusting to every of the accountants' skill and honesty: so also in reasoning of all other things, he that takes up conclusions on the trust of authors, and doth not fetch them from the first items in every reckoning, (which are the significations of names settled by definitions), loses his labour; and does not know any thing; but only believeth. 5. 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 conjucture what was likely to have preceded, or is likely to follow upon it;) if that which he thought likely to follow, follows not; or 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. 6. I have said before, (in the second chapter,} that a man did excel all other animals in this faculty, that when he conceived any thing whatsoever, he was apt to inquire the consequences of it, 29

The use of reason.

Of error and absurdity.

[20]

PART I

Causes of absurdity.

1.

2.

3.

4.

S.

OF MAN

and what effects he could do with it. And now I add this other degree of the same excellence, that he can by words reduce the consequences he finds to general rules, called theorems, or aphorisms; that is, he can reason, or reckon, not only in number, but in all other things, whereof one may be added unto, or subtracted from another. 7. But this privilege, is allayed by another; and 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 it is most true that Cicero saith of them somewhere; that there can be nothing so absurd, but may be found in the books of philosophers.* And the reason is manifest. For there is not one of them that begins his ratiocination from the definitions, or explications of the names they are to use; which is a method that hath been used only in geometry; whose conclusions have thereby been made indisputable. 8. The first cause of absurd conclusions I ascribe to the want of method; in that they begin not their ratiocination from definitions; that is, from settled significations of their words: as if they could cast account, without knowing the value of the numeral words, one, two, and three. 9. And whereas all bodies enter into account upon divers considerations, (which I have mentioned in the precedent chapter;) these considerations being diversely named, divers absurdities proceed from the confusion, and unfit connexion of their names into assertions. And therefore 10. The second cause of absurd assertions, I ascribe to the giving of names of bodies, to accidents; or of accidents to bodies; as they do, that say, faith is infused, or inspired; when nothing can be poured, or breathed into anything, but body; and that, extension is body; that phantasms are spirits, &c. 11. The third I ascribe to the giving of the names of the accidents of bodies without us, to the accidents of our own bodies; as they do that say the colour is in the body; the sound is in the air, &c. 12. The fourth, to the giving of the names of bodies, to names, or speeches; as they do that say, that there be things universal; that a living creature is genus, or a general thing, &c. 13. The fifth, to the giving of the names of accidents, to names and speeches; as they do that say, the nature of a thing is its definition; a man's command is his will; and the like. 30

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14. The sixth, to the use of metaphors, tropes, and other rhetorical figures, instead of words proper. For though it be lawful to say (for example) in common speech, the way goeth, or leadeth hither, or thither; the proverb says this or that (whereas ways cannot go, nor proverbs speak;) yet in reckoning, and seeking of truth, such speeches are not to be admitted. 15. The seventh, to names that signify nothing;* but are taken up, and learned by rote from the schools, as hypostatical, transubstantiate, consubstantiate, eternal-now, and the like canting of Schoolmen. 16. To him that can avoid these things, it is not easy to fall into any absurdity, unless it be by the length of an account; wherein he may perhaps forget what went before. For all men by nature reason alike, and well, when they have good principles. For who is so stupid, as both to mistake in geometry, and also to persist in it, when another detects his error to him? 17. By this 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; first in apt imposing of names; and secondly by getting a good and orderly method in proceeding from the elements, which are names, to assertions made by connexion of one of them to another; and so to syllogisms, which are the connexions of one assertion to another, till we come to a knowledge of all the consequences of names appertaining to the subject in hand; and that is it, men call SCIENCE. And whereas sense and memory are but knowledge of fact, which is a thing past, and irrevocable; Science is the knowledge of consequences, and dependence of one fact upon another: by which, out of that we can presently do, we know how to do something else when we will, or the like, another time: because when we see how any thing comes about, upon what causes, and by what manner; when the like causes come into our power, we see how to make it produce the like effects. 18. Children therefore are not endued with reason at all, till they have attained the use of speech; but are called reasonable creatures, for the possibility apparent of having the use of reason in time to come. And the most part of men, though they have the use of reasoning a little way, as in numbering to some degree; yet it serves them to little use in common life; in which they govern themselves, some better, some worse, according to their differences of experience, quickness of memory, and inclinations to several 31

6.

7. [21]

Science.

PART I

OF MAN

ends; but specially according to good or evil fortune, and the errors of one another. For as for science, or certain rules of their actions, they are so far from it, that they know not what it is. Geometry they have thought conjuring: but for other sciences, they who have not been taught the beginnings, and some progress in them, that they may see how they be acquired and generated, are in this point like children, that having no thought of generation, are made believe by the women, that their brothers and sisters are not born, but found in the garden. 19. But yet they that have no science, are in better, and nobler condition, with their natural prudence; than men, that by mis-reasoning, or by trusting them that reason wrong, fall upon false and absurd general rules. For ignorance of causes, and of rules, does not set men so far out of their way, as relying on false rules, and taking for causes of what they aspire to, those that are not so, but rather causes of the contrary. 20. To conclude, the light of human minds is perspicuous words, [22] but by exact definitions first snuffed, and purged from ambiguity; reason is the pace; increase of science, the way; and the benefit of mankind, the end. And on the contrary, metaphors, and senseless and ambiguous words, are like ignes fatui;* and reasoning upon them, is wandering amongst innumerable absurdities; and their end, contention, and sedition, or contempt [indifference]. Prudence C5 21. As, much experience, is prudence; so, is much science, sapience, with sapience. For though we usually have one name of wisdom for them their both; yet the Latins did always distinguish between prudentia and difference. sapientia; ascribing the former to experience, the latter to science. But to make their difference appear more clearly, let us suppos~ one man endued with an excellent natural use, and dexterity in handling his arms; and another to have added to that dexterity, an acquired science, of where he can offend, or be offended by his adversary, in every possible posture, or guard: the ability of the former, would be to the ability of the latter, as prudence to sapience; both useful; but the latter infallible. But they that trusting only to the authority of books, follow the blind blindly, are like him that, trusting to the false rules of a master of fence, ventures presumptuously upon an adversary, that either kills or disgraces him. Signs of 22. The signs of science, are some, certain and infallible; some, sctence. uncertain. Certain, when he that pretendeth the science of any thing, can teach the same; that is to say, demonstrate the truth

32

OF MAN

CHAP. 6

thereof perspicuously to another; uncertain, when only some particular events answer to his pretence, and upon many occasions prove so as he says they must. Signs of prudence are all uncertain; because to observe by experience, and remember all circumstances that may alter the success, is impossible. But in any business, whereof a man has not infallible science to proceed by; to forsake his own natural judgment, and be guided by general sentences read in authors, and subject to many exceptions, is a sign of folly, and generally scorned by the name of pedantry. And even of those men themselves, that in councils of the commonwealth, love to show their reading of politics and history, very few do it in their domestic affairs, where their particular interest is concerned; having prudence enough for their private affairs: but in public they study more the reputation of their own wit, than the success of another's business.

CHAPTER VI

[23]

OF THE INTERIOR BEGINNINGS OF VOLUNTARY MOTIONS; COMMONLY CALLED THE PASSIONS. AND THE SPEECHES BY WHICH THEY ARE EXPRESSED

1. * THERE be in animals, two sorts of motions peculiar to them: Motion vital one called vital; begun in generation, and continued without and animal. interruption through their whole life; such as are the course of the blood, the pulse, the breathing, the concoction [digestion], nutrition, excretion, &c; to which motions there needs no help of imagination: the other is animal motion, otherwise called voluntary motion; as to go, to speak, to move any of our limbs, in such manner as is first fancied in our minds. That sense, is motion in the organs and interior parts of man's body, caused by the action of the things we see, hear, &c; and that fancy is but the relics of the same motion, remaining after sense, has been already said in the first and second chapters. And because going, speaking, and the like voluntary motions, depend always upon a precedent thought of whither, which way, and what; it is evident, that the imagination is the first internal beginning of all voluntary motion. And although unstudied men, do not conceive any motion at all to be there, where the thing moved is 33

PART

I

OF

MAN

invisible; or the space it is moved in, is (for the shortness of it) insensible; yet that doth not hinder, but that such motions are. For let a space be never so little, that which is moved over a greater space, whereof that little one is part, must first be moved over that. These small beginnings of motion, within the body of man, before they appear in walking, speaking, striking, and other visible actions, Endeavour. are commonly called ENDEAVOUR.* 2. This endeavour, when it is toward something which causes it, Appetite. is called APPETITE, or DESIRE; the latter, being the general name; and Desire. the other oftentimes restrained to signify the desire of food, namely Hunger. hunger and thirst. And when the endeavour is from ward something, Thirst. it is generally called AVERSION. These words appetite, and aversion we Aversion. have from the Latins; and they both of them signify the motions, one of approaching, the other of retiring. So also do the Greek words for the same, which are O(!flq and (upOQflq. For nature itself does often press upon men those truths, which afterwards, when they look for somewhat beyond nature, they stumble at. For the Schools find in mere appetite to go, or move, no actual motion at all: but because some motion they must acknowledge, they call it metaphorical motion; which is but an absurd speech: for though words may be called metaphorical; bodies, and motions can not. Love. Hate. 3. That which men desire, they are also said to LOVE: and to HATE those things, for which they have aversion. So that desire, and love, [24] are the same thing; save that by desire, we always signify the absence of the object; by love, most commonly the presence of the same. So also by aversion, we signify the absence; and by hate, the presence of the object. 4. Of appetites and aversions, some are born with men; as appetite of food, appetite of excretion, and exoneration,* (which may also and more properly be called aversions, from somewhat they feel in their bodies;) and some other appetites, not many. The rest, which are appetites of particular things, proceed from experience, and trial of their effects upon themselves, or other men. For ofthings we know not at all, or believe not to be, we can have no further desire, than to taste and try. But aversion we have for things, not only which we know have hurt us; but also that we do not know whether they will hurt us, or not. Contempt. 5. Those things which we neither desire, nor hate, we are said to contemn: CONTEMPT being nothing else but an immobility, or contumacy [obstinacy] of the heart, in resisting the action of certain 34

OF MAN

CHAP.

6

things; and proceeding from that the heart is already moved otherwise, by other more potent objects; or from want of experience of them. 6. * And because the constitution of a man's body is in continual mutation; 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 almost any one and the same object. 7. But whatsoever is the object of any man's appetite or desire; that is it, which he for his part calleth good: and the object of his Good. hate, and aversion, evil; and of his contempt, vile and inconsiderable. Evil. For these words of good, evil, and contemptible, are ever used with relation to the person that useth 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 representeth it; or from an arbitrator or judge, whom men disagreeing shall by consent set up, and make his sentence the rule thereof. 8. The Latin tongue has two words, whose significations approach to those of good and evil; but are not precisely the same; and those are pulchrum and turpe. Whereof the former signifies that, Pulchrum. which by some apparent signs promiseth good; and the latter, that, Turpe. which promiseth evil. But in our tongue we have not so general names to express them by. But for pulchrum, we say in some things, fair; in others, beautiful, or handsome, or gallant, or honourable, or comely, or amiable; and for turpe,foul, deformed, ugly, base, nauseous, and the like, as the subject shall require; all which words, in their proper places, signify nothing else, but the mien or countenance, that promiseth good and evil. So that of good there be three kinds; good in the promise, that is pulchrum; good in effect, as the end desired, which is calledjucundum, delightful; and good as the means, Delightful. which is called utile, profitable; and as many of evil: for evil, in Profitable. promise, is that they call turpe; evil in effect, and end, is molestum, Unpleasant. Unprofitable. unpleasant, troublesome; and evil in the means, inutile, unprofitable, hurtful. 9. As, in sense, that which is really within us, is (as I have said [25] before*) only motion, caused by the action of external objects, but in appearance; to the sight, light and colour; to the ear, sound; to the nostril, odour, &c: so, when the action of the same object is continued from the eyes, ears, and other organs to the heart; the real 35

PART I

Delight. Displeasure. Pleasure.

Offence.

Pleasures of sense.

Pleasures of the mind. Joy. Pain.

Grief

Hope. Despair. Fear. Courage. Anger.

OF MAN

effect there is nothing but motion, or endeavour; which consisteth in appetite, or aversion, to, or from the object moving. But the appearance, or sense of that motion, is that we either call delight, or trouble of mind. 10. This motion, which is called appetite, and for the appearance of it delight, and pleasure, seemeth to be, a corroboration of vital

motion, and a help thereunto; and therefore such things as caused delight, were not improperly called jucunda, (a juvando,) from helping or fortifying; and the contrary, molesta, offensive, from hindering, and troubling the motion vital. 11. Pleasure therefore, (or delight,) is the appearance, or sense of good; and molestation or displeasure, the appearence, or sense of evil. And consequently all appetite, desire, and love, is accompanied with some delight more or less; and all hatred, and aversion, with more or less displeasure and offence. 12. Of pleasures, or delights, some arise from the sense of an object present; and those may be called pleasures ofsense; (the word sensual, as it is used by those only that condemn them, having no place till there be laws.) Of this kind are all onerations and exonerations* of the body; as also all that is pleasant, in the sight, hearing, smell, taste, or touch; others arise from the expectation, that proceeds from foresight of the end, or consequence of things; whether those things in the sense please or displease: and these are pleasures of the mind of him that draweth those consequences; and are generally called JOY. In the like manner, displeasures, are some in the sense, and called PAIN; others, in the expectation of consequences, and are called GRIEF. 13. These simple passions called appetite, desire, love, aversion, hate, joy, and grief, have their names for divers considerations diversified. As first, when they one succeed another, they are diversely called from the opinion men have of the likelihood of attaining what they desire. Secondly, from the object loved or hated. Thirdly, from the consideration of many of them together. Fourthly, from the alteration or succession itself. 14. * For appetite with an opinion of attaining, is called HOPE. 15. The same, without such opinion, DESPAIR. 16. Aversion, with opinion of HURT from the object, FEAR. 17. The same, with hope of avoiding that hurt by resistance, COURAGE.

18. Sudden courage,

ANGER.

OF MAN

CHAP.

6

19. Constant hope, CONFIDENCE of ourselves. 20. Constant despair, DIFFIDENCE of ourselves. 21. Anger for great hurt done to another, when we conceive the same to be done by injury, INDIGNATION. 22. Desire of good to another, BENEVOLENCE, GOOD WILL, CHARITY. Jfto man generally, GOOD NATURE. 23. Desire of riches, COVETOUSNESS: a name used always in signification of blame; because men contending for them, are displeased with one another's attaining them; though the desire in itself, be to be blamed, or allowed, according to the means by which these riches are sought. 24. Desire of office, or precedence, AMBITION: a name used also in the worse sense, for the reason before mentioned. 25. Desire of things that conduce but a little to our ends; and fear of things that are but of little hindrance, PUSILLANIMITY. 26. Contempt of little helps, and hindrances, MAGNANIMITY. 27. Magnanimity, in danger of death, or wounds, VALOUR, FORTI-

Confidence. Dij]idence.

[26] Indignation. Benevolence. Good nature. Coutousness.

Ambition. Pusillanimit)'· A1agnanimity. Valour.

TUDE.

28. Magnanimity, in the use of riches, LIBERALITY. 29. Pusillanimity, in the same WRETCHEDNESS, MISERABLENESS; or PARSIMONY; as it is liked, or disliked. 30. Love of persons for society, KINDNESS. 31. Love of persons for pleasing the sense on! y, NATURAL LUST. 32. Love of the same, acquired from rumination, that is, imagination of pleasure past, LUXURY. 33. Love of one singularly, with desire to be singularly beloved, THE PASSION OF LOVE. The same, with fear that the love is not mutual, JEALOUSY. 34. Desire, by doing hurt to another, to make him condemn some fact of his own, REVENGEFULNESS. 35. Desire, to know why, and how, CURIOSITY; such as is in no living creature but man: so that man is distinguished, not only by his reason; but also by this singular passion from other animals; in whom the appetite of food, and other pleasures of sense, by predominance, take away the care of knowing causes; which is a lust of the mind, that by a perseverance of delight in the continual and indefatigable generation of knowledge, exceedeth the short vehemence of any carnal pleasure. 36. Fear of power invisible, feigned by the mind, or imagined from tales publicly allowed, RELIGION; not allowed, SUPERSTITION.* 37

Liberality. .Miserable11ess. Kindness. Natura/lust. Luxur)'. The passion of lou. Jealousy. Rn:engifU/ne~