part I
must confess that I agree with the Bishop of Worcester on this occasion, who asks, ‘What is it that makes Peter, James, and John real men? Is it the attributing the general name to them? No, certainly, but that the true and real essence of a man is in every one of them. They take their denomination of being men from that common nature or essence which is in them.’ On the opposite system it is not the nature of the thing which determines the imposition of the name, but the imposition of the name which determines the nature of the thing; or giving them the name makes Peter, James, and John men, as in the opinion of some divines Baptism makes them Christians. That there is a real difference in things and ideas, answering to their general names, appears evident from this single observation, that if it were not so, we could never know how to apply these general names, and we could no more distinguish between a man and a horse than we could tell at first sight, that one man’s proper name was John and another’s Thomas. The puzzle about genera and species, in this view of the question, seems to arise from a very obvious transposition of ideas. Because the abstracting or separating these general ideas from particular circumstances is the workmanship of the understanding: it has, therefore, been inferred, that the ideas themselves are so too, and that they exist no where but in the mind which perceives them.
But I would fain ask, in the account which Mr. Locke gives of the abstract ideas of _animal_ for example, whether body, sense, and motion, as they exist in different individuals, have not a general nature, or something common in all those individuals. If _body_ in one case expresses the same thing, or same idea as _body_ in another, their generals belong to things and ideas, as well as to names; if body in one case expresses quite a different thing in one to what it does in another, then it is not easy to imagine what determines the mind to apply the name to these different things, or on what foundation Mr. Locke’s definition rests. Extreme opinions were not in general the side on which Mr. Locke erred; and, on the present occasion, he has qualified his opposition to the prevailing system in such a manner, that it is difficult to say in what point he admitted or rejected it. He evidently, in the general scope of this argument, admits the reality of abstract ideas in the mind, though he denies the existence of real sorts, or nature of things of the mind to correspond to them: for the expressions which intimate any doubt of the former are occasional and parenthetical, and his acknowledgment that there is something in nature which guides and determines the mind in the sorting of things and giving names to them is equally extorted from him. There is none of this doubt and perplexity in the minds of his French commentators; none of this suspicion of error and anxious desire to correct it; no lurking objections arise to stagger their confidence in themselves; it is all the same light airy self-complacency; not a speck is to be seen in the clear sky of their metaphysics, not a cloud obscures the sparkling current of their thoughts. In the logic of Condillac, the whole question of abstract ideas, of genera and species, and of the nature of reasoning as founded upon them, is settled and cleared from all difficulties, past, present, and to come, with as little expence of thought, time, and trouble, as possible. The Abbé demonstrates with ease. ‘General ideas,’ he says, ‘of which we have explained the formation, are a part of the aggregate idea of each of the individuals to which they correspond, and they are considered, for this reason, as so many partial or imperfect ideas. The idea of man, for instance, makes part of the complex ideas of Peter and Paul, since it is equally to be found in both. There is no such thing as man in general. This partial idea has then no reality out of the mind, but it has one in the mind, where it exists separately from the aggregate or individual ideas of which it is a part. All our general ideas are then so many abstract ideas, and you see that we form them only in consequence of taking from each individual idea that which is common to all.
‘But what, in truth, is the reality which a general and abstract idea has in the mind. It is nothing but a name: or, if it is any thing more, it necessarily ceases to be abstract, and general. When, for example, I think of a _man_, I consider this word as a common denomination, in which case, it is very evident, that my idea is in some sort circumscribed within this name, that it does not extend to anything beyond it, and that consequently it is nothing but the name itself. If, on the contrary, thinking of man in general, I contemplate any thing in this word, besides the mere denomination, it can only be by representing myself to some one man; and a man can no more be man in general, or in the abstract in my mind, than in nature. Abstract ideas are therefore only denominations. If we will absolutely think that they are something else, we shall only resemble a painter who should obstinately persist in painting the figure of a man in general, and who would still paint only individuals. This observation concerning abstract and general ideas, demonstrates that their clearness depends entirely on the order in which we have arranged the denominations of classes; and that, consequently, to determine this sort of ideas, there is only one means, which is to construct a language properly.
‘This confirms what we have already demonstrated, how necessary words are to us: for if we had no general terms, we should have no abstract ideas, we should have neither _genera_, or _species_, and without _genera_ and _species_, we could reason upon nothing. But if we reason only by means of words this is a new proof that we can only reason well or ill, according as the language, in which we reason, is well or ill made. The analysis of our thoughts can only enable us to reason in proportion as by instructing us how to class our abstract ideas, it enables us how to form our language correctly, and the whole art of reasoning is thus reduced to the art of well speaking.’
What in this supremacy of words is to be the criterion of well speaking the Abbé does not say.
‘To speak, to reason, to form general or abstract ideas, are then in fact the same thing: and this truth, simple as it is, might pass for a discovery. Certainly, men in general have not had any notion of it; this is evident from the manner in which they speak and reason; it is evident from the abuse which they make of abstract ideas; finally, it is evident from the difficulties which those persons confessedly find in conceiving of abstract ideas who have so little in speaking of them.
‘The art of reasoning resolves into the construction of languages, only because the order of our ideas itself depends entirely on the subordination that subsists between the names given to _genera_ and _species_; and as we arrive at new ideas only by forming new classes, it follows that we can only determine or define our ideas by determining their classes. In this case we should reason well, because we should be guided by analogy in our conclusions as well as in the acceptation of words.
‘Convinced, therefore, that classes or sorts of things are pure denominations, we shall never think of supposing that there exist in nature _genera_ or _species_; and we shall understand by these words nothing but a certain mode of classing things according to the relations which they have to ourselves and to one another. We shall be sensible that we can only discover those relations, and not what the things truly are.’
Berkeley handled his subjects with little tenderness, and he has perfectly anatomised this subject of abstract ideas. In choosing to answer the objections to this doctrine as stated by him, I shall not be accused of wishing to encounter a mean adversary. I can only trust to the goodness of my cause. I hope I shall be excused for going at some length into the argument, because it is one of the most difficult and complicated in itself, and is of the most extensive application to other questions relating to the human understanding. If we can come to any satisfactory issue to it, it will be worth the pains of enquiry.
‘It is agreed on all hands,’ says this author, ‘that the quantities or modes of things do never really exist in each of them, apart by itself, and separated from all others, but are mixed, as it were, and blended together, several in the same object. But we are told the mind being able to consider each quality singly, or abstracted from those other qualities with which it is united, does by that means frame to itself abstract ideas. For example, there is perceived by sight, an object, extended, coloured, and moved. This mixed idea the mind resolving into its simple constituent parts, and viewing each by itself exclusive of the rest, does frame the abstract ideas of extension, colour, and motion. Not that it is possible for colour or motion to exist without extension, but only that the mind can frame to itself by abstraction the idea of colour, exclusive of extension, and of motion exclusive both of colour and extension. Again, the mind having observed that in the
## particular extensions perceived by sense, there is something common and
alike in all, and some other things peculiar, as this or that figure, or magnitude, which distinguish them one from another, it considers apart, or singles out by itself that which is most common, making thereof a most abstract idea of extension, line, surface, or solid, nor has any figure or magnitude, but is an idea prescinded from all these. So likewise the mind by leaving out of the particular colours perceived by sense, that which distinguishes them one from another, and retaining that which only is common to all, makes an idea of colour in abstract, which is neither red, nor blue, not white, &c. And in like manner by considering motion abstractedly, not only the body moved, but likewise from the figure it describes, and all particular directions and velocities, the abstract idea of motion is framed, which equally corresponds to all particular motions whatsoever that may be perceived by sense.
‘And as the mind frames to itself abstract ideas of qualities, or modes, so does it by the precision or mental separation, attain abstract ideas of the more compound beings, which include several co-existent qualities:—for example, the mind having observed, that Peter, James, John, &c., resemble each other in certain common agreements of shape, and other qualities, leaves out of the complex or compounded idea it has of Peter, James, &c., that which is peculiar to each, retaining only what is common to all; and so makes an abstract idea wherein the
## particulars equally partake, abstracting entirely, and cutting off all
those circumstances and differences which might determine it, to any
## particular existence. And after this manner it is said, we come by the
abstract idea of man, or if you please humanity, or human nature; ’tis true, there is included colour, because there is no man but has some colour, but then it can be neither white nor black, nor any particular colour, because there is no one particular colour, wherein all men partake; so there is included stature, but then it is neither tall stature, nor low stature, nor yet middle stature, but something abstracted from all these; and so of the rest. Moreover, there being a great variety of other creatures that partake in some parts, not all, of the complex idea, man, the mind leaving out those parts which are peculiar to men, and retaining those only which are common to all living creatures, frames the idea of animals, which abstracts not only from all
## particular men, but also, all birds, beasts, fishes, and insects. By
_Body_ is meant body without any particular shape, or figure, there being no one shape or figure common to all animals, without covering of hair, feathers, or scales, &c. nor yet naked; hair, feathers, scales, and nakedness, being the distinguishing properties of particular animals, and for that reason left out of the abstract idea; upon the same account the spontaneous motion must be neither in walking, nor flying, nor creeping, it is nevertheless a motion, but what that motion is, it is not easy to conceive.’
‘Whether others have this wonderful faculty of abstracting their ideas, they best can tell: for myself I dare be confident I have it not. I have a faculty of imagining or representing to myself the ideas of those
## particular things I have perceived, and of variously compounding and
dividing them. I can imagine a man with two heads or the upper part of a man joined to the body of a horse; I can consider the hand, the eye, the nose, each by itself, abstracted or separated from the rest of the body. But then, whatever hand or eye, I imagine, it must have some particular shape, and colour. Likewise, the idea of man that I frame to myself must be either of a white, or a black, or a tawny; a strait, or a crooked; a tall, or a low, or a middle-sized man. I cannot by any effort of thought conceive the abstract idea above-described: and it is equally impossible for me to form the abstract idea of motion distinct from the body moving, and which is neither swift nor slow, curvilinear nor rectilinear, and the like may be said of other abstract general ideas whatsoever: to be plain, I own myself able to abstract in one sense, as when I consider some particular parts or qualities separated from others, with which, though they are united in some objects, yet it is possible they may really exist without them. But I deny that I can abstract from one another, or conceive separately those qualities, which it is impossible should exist so separated:—or that I can frame a general notion by abstracting from particulars in the manner aforesaid, which two last are the proper acceptation of abstraction; and there is ground to think most men will acknowledge themselves to be in my case.
‘The generality of men, which are simple and illiterate, never pretend to abstract notions. It is said they are difficult and not to be attained without pains and study; we may therefore reasonably conclude that, if such there be, they are confined only to the learned. I proceed to examine what can be alleged in defence of the doctrine of abstraction, and try if I can discover what it is that inclines the man of speculation to embrace an opinion so remote from common sense as that seems to be. There has been a late excellent and deservedly esteemed philosopher, who no doubt has given it very much, by seeming to think the having abstract general ideas is what puts the difference in point of understanding betwixt man and beast.’
The author here quotes a passage from Mr. Locke on the subject, which it is not necessary to give, and afterwards his opinion that words become general by being made signs of general ideas. He then proceeds:—‘To this I cannot assent, being of opinion that a word becomes general by being made the sign, not of an abstract general idea, but of several
## particular ideas, any one of which it indifferently suggests to the
mind.’
‘If we will annex a meaning to our words and speak only of what we can only conceive, I believe we shall acknowledge that an idea, which considered in itself is particular, becomes general, by being made to represent or stand for all other particular ideas _of the same sort_. To make this plain by example, suppose a geometrician is demonstrating the method of cutting a line in two equal parts. He draws for instance a black line of an inch in length: this which is in itself a particular line, is nevertheless, with regard to its signification, general, since, as it is there used, it represents all particular lines whatsoever, so that what is demonstrated of it is demonstrated of all lines, or in other words of a line in general; and, as that particular line becomes general, by being made a sign, so the name _line_, which taken absolutely, is particular, by being a sign, is made general. And as the former owes its generality not to its being the sign of an abstract or general line, but of all particular right lines that may possibly exist, so the latter must be thought to derive its generality from the same cause, namely, the various particular lines which it indifferently denotes.’
‘To give the reader a clearer view of the nature of abstract ideas, and the uses they are thought necessary to, I shall add one more passage out of the Essay on Human Understanding, which is as follows:—“Abstract ideas are not so obvious or easy to children, or the yet unexercised mind as particular ones. If they seem so to grown men, it is only by constant and familiar use they are made so. For when we nicely reflect upon them, we shall find that general ideas are fictions and contrivances of the mind, that carry difficulty with them, and do not so easily offer themselves as we are apt to imagine. For example, does it not require some skill and pains to form the general idea of a triangle (which is yet none of the abstract, comprehensive, and difficult), for it must be neither oblique nor rectangle, neither equilateral, equicrural, nor scalenon, but all and none of these at once. In effect it is something imperfect that cannot exist, an idea wherein some parts of different and inconsistent ideas are put together. ’Tis true the mind in this imperfect state has need of such ideas, and makes all the haste it can to them, for the convenience of communication and enlargement of knowledge, to both of which it is naturally very much inclined. But yet one has reason to suspect such ideas are marks of our imperfections, at least this is enough to show that the most abstract and general ideas are not those that the mind is first and most easily acquainted with, nor such as its earliest knowledge is conversant about.”‘—After laughing at this description of the general idea of a triangle, which is neither oblique nor rectangle, equilateral, equicrural, nor scalenon, but all and none of these at once, Berkeley adds, ‘much is here said of the difficulty that abstract ideas carry with them, and the pains and skill requisite to the forming of them. And it is on all hands agreed that there is need of great toil and labour of mind, to emancipate our thoughts from particular objects, and raise them to those sublime speculations that are conversant about abstract ideas. From all which the natural consequences should seem to be, that so difficult a thing as forming abstract ideas was not necessary for communication, which is so familiar to all sorts of men. But, we are told, if they seem obvious and easy to grown men, it is only because by constant and familiar use they are made so. Now I would fain know at what time it is, men are employed in surmounting that difficulty and furnishing themselves with those necessary helps for discourse. It cannot be when they are grown up, for then it seems they are not conscious of any such pains-taking; it therefore remains to be the business of their childhood. And surely the great and multiplied labour of framing abstract notions will be found a hard task for that tender age. Is it not a hard thing to imagine that a couple of children cannot prate of their sugar plums, and rattles, and the rest of their little trinkets, till they have first packed together numberless inconsistencies, and so framed in their minds general abstract ideas, and annexed them to every common name they make use of.
‘It is I know a point much insisted on that all knowledge and demonstration are about universal notions, to which I fully assent. But then it does not appear to me that those notions are formed by abstraction, in the manner premised; universality, so far as I can comprehend, not consisting in the absolute, positive nature and conception of any thing, but in the relation it bears to the particulars signified, or represented by it. But here it will be demanded, how we can know any proposition to be true of all particular triangles, except we have seen it first demonstrated of the abstract idea of a triangle which equally agrees to all?
‘For because a property may be demonstrated to agree to some particular triangle, it will not thence follow that it equally belongs to every other with it. For example, having demonstrated that the three angles of an isosceles, rectangular triangle, are equal to two right ones, I cannot therefore conclude this affection argues to all other triangles, which have neither a right angle, nor two equal sides. It seems, therefore, that to be certain this proposition is universally true we must either make a particular demonstration for every particular triangle, which is impossible, or once for all demonstrate it of the abstract idea of a triangle, in which all the particulars do indifferently partake, and by which they are all equally represented.’ To which I answer, that though the idea I have in view, whilst I make the demonstration, be, for instance, that of an isosceles, not a regular triangle, whose sides are of a determinate length, I may nevertheless be certain it extends to all other rectilinear triangles of what sort or bigness soever. And that neither because the right angle, nor the equality, nor determinate length of the sides are at all concerned in the demonstration. It is true, the diagram I have in view includes all these particulars, but then there is not the least mention made of them in the proofs of the proposition. It is not said the three angles are equal to two right ones, because one of these is a right angle, or because the sides comprehending it are of the same length. Which sufficiently shews that the right angle might have been oblique and the sides unequal, and for all the others the demonstrations have held good. And for this reason it is that I conclude that to be true of any oblique angular, or scalenon, which I had demonstrated of a particular right angled, equicrural, triangle, and not because I demonstrated the proposition of the abstract idea of a triangle.’ The author then adds some further remarks on the use of abstract terms, and concludes—‘May we not, for example, be affected with the promise of a _good thing_, though we have not an idea of what it is? or is not the being threatened with danger sufficient to excite a dread, though we think not of a particular evil likely to befal us, and yet frame to ourselves an idea of danger in abstract?’ Introduction to Principles of Human Knowledge, p. 31.
Hume, who has taken up Berkeley’s arguments on this subject, and affirms that the doctrine of abstract ideas applies the flattest of all contradictions, that it is possible for the same thing to be and not to be, has enlarged a good deal on this last topic of the manner in which words may be supposed to excite general ideas. His words are these: ‘Where we have found a resemblance between any two objects that often occur to us, we apply the same name to all of them, whatever differences we may observe in the degrees of their quantity and quality, and whatever differences may appear among them. After we have acquired a custom of this kind, the hearing of that name revives the idea of one of these objects, and makes the imagination conceive it with its particular circumstances and proportions. But as the same word is supposed to have been frequently applied to other individuals that are different in many respects from the idea which is immediately present to the mind, the word not being able to revive the idea of all these individuals, only _touches_ the soul, if I may be allowed so to speak, and revives that custom, which we have acquired by surveying them. They are not in reality present to the mind, but only in power, nor do we draw them out distinctly in the imagination, but keep ourselves in readiness to survey any of them, as we may be prompted by a present design or necessity. The word raises up an individual idea, along with a certain custom; and that custom produces any other individual one, for which we may have occasion.’ Treatise of Human Nature, p. 43, 4. The author afterwards adds, with his usual candour, that this account does not perfectly satisfy him, but he relies principally on the logical demonstration of the impossibilities of abstract ideas just before given.
I confess it does not seem an easy matter to recover the argument in this state of it; however, I will attempt it. What I shall endeavour will not be so much to answer the foregoing reasoning as to prove that in a strict sense all ideas whatever are mere abstractions and can be nothing else; that some of the most clear, distinct, and positive ideas of particular objects are made up of numberless inconsistencies; and that as Hume expresses it, they do touch the soul, and are not drawn distinctly in the imagination, &c. Though I shall not be able to point out distinctly the fallacy of the foregoing reasonings, I hope to make it appear that there must be something wrong in the premises, and that the nature of thought and ideas is quite different from what is here supposed. I may be allowed to set off one paradox against another, and as these writers affirm that all abstract ideas are particular images, so I shall try to prove that all particular images are abstract ideas. If it can be made to appear that our ideas of particular things themselves are not particular, it may be easily granted that those which are in general allowed to be abstract are all so. The existence of abstract and complex ideas in the mind has been disputed for the same reason, that is, in falsely attributing individuality, or absolute unity to the objects of sense. While each thing or object was said to be absolutely one and simple, there was found to be no reach, compass, or expansion of mind, to comprehend it; and, on the other hand, there was no room on the same supposition for the doctrine of abstraction, for there is no abstracting from absolute unity. That which is one positive, indivisible thing, must remain entire as this, or cease to exist. There is no alternative between individuality and nothing. As long as we are determined to consider any one thing or idea, as the knot of a chain, or the figure of a man, or any thing else, as one individual, it must, as it were, go together: we can take nothing away without destroying it altogether. I have already shewn that there is no one object which does not consist of a number of parts and relations, or which does not require a comprehensive facility in the mind in order to conceive of it. Now abstraction is a necessary consequence of the limitation of this power of the mind, and if it were a previous condition of our having the ideas of things that we should comprehend distinctly all the particulars of which they are composed, we could have no ideas at all. An imperfectly comprehended is a general idea. But the mind perfectly comprehends the whole of no one object. That is, it has not an absolute and distinct knowledge of all its parts or differences, and consequently all our ideas are abstractions, that is a general and confused result from a number of undistinguished, and undistinguishable impressions, for there is no possible medium between a perfectly distinct comprehension of all the particulars, which is impossible, or that imperfect and confused one, that properly constitutes a general notion in the one case or the other. To explain this more particularly. In looking at any object, as a house on the opposite side of the way, it is supposed that the impression I have of it is a perfectly distinct, precise, or definite idea, in which abstraction has no concern. And the general idea of a house, it is said, is rather a mere word, or must reduce itself to some such positive, individual image as that conveyed by the sight of a
## particular house, it being impossible that it should be made up of the
confused, imperfect, and undistinguishable impressions of several different objects of the same kind. Now it appears to me the easiest thing in the world to shew that this sensible image of a particular house, into which the general is to be resolved for greater clearness, is itself but a confused and vague notion, or numberless inconsistencies packed together; not one precise individual thing, or any number of things, distinctly perceived. For I would ask of any one who thinks his senses furnish him with these infallible and perfect conceptions of things, free from all contradiction and perplexity, whether he has a precise knowledge of all the circumstance of the object prescribed to him. For instance, is the knowledge which he has that the house before him is larger than another near it, in consequence of his intentively considering all the bricks of which it is composed, or can he tell that it contains a greater number of windows than another, without distinctly counting them? Let us suppose, however, that he does. But this will not be enough unless he has also a distinct perception of the numbers and the size of the panes of glass in each window, or of any mark, stain, or dirt in each separate brick? Otherwise his idea of each of these
## particulars will still be general, and his most substantial knowledge
built on shadows; that is composed of a number of parts of the parts of which he has no knowledge. If objects were what mankind in general suppose them, single things, we could have no notion of them but what was particular, for by leaving out any thing we should leave out the whole object, which is but one thing. We may also be said to have a
## particular knowledge of things in proportion to the number of parts we
distinguish in them. But the real foundation of all our knowledge, is and must be general, that is, a mere confused impression or effect of feeling produced by a number of things, for there is no object which does not consist of an infinite number of parts, and we have not an infinite number of distinct ideas answering to them. Yet it cannot be denied that we have some knowledge of things, that they make some impression on us, and this knowledge, this impression, must therefore be an abstract one, the natural result of a limited understanding, which is variously affected by a number of things at the same time, but which is not susceptible of itself to an infinite number of modifications. If it should be said that the sensible image of the house is still one, as being one impression, or given result, I answer that the most abstract ideas of a house, and the imperfect recollection of a number of houses is in the same sense one, and a real idea, distinct from that of a tree, though far from being a particular image. Again, it is said, that in conceiving of the idea of man in general, we must conceive a man a
## particular sign or figure. I would ask first is this to be understood
merely of his height, or of his form in general? If the latter, it would imply that we have, wherever we pronounce the word _man_, no ideas at all, or a distinct conception of a man with a head and limbs of a certain extent and proportion, of every turn in each feature, of every variety in the formation of each part, as well as of its distance from every other part, a knowledge which no sculptor or painter ever had of any one figure of which he was the most perfect master, for it would be a knowledge of an infinite number of lines drawn in all directions from every part of the body, with their precise length and terminations. Those who have consigned this business of abstraction over to the senses with a view to make the whole matter plain and easy, have not been aware of what they have been doing. They supposed with the vulgar that it was only necessary to open the eyes in order to see, and that the images produced by outward objects are completely defined, and unalterable things, in which there can be no dimness and confusion. These speculators had no thought but they saw as much of a landscape as Poussin, and knew as much about a face that was before them as Titian or Vandyke would have done. This is a great mistake; the having particular and absolute ideas of things is not only difficult, but impossible. The ablest painters have never been able to give more than one part of nature, in abstracted views of things. The most laborious artists never finished to perfection any one part of an object, or had ever any more than a confused, vague, uncertain notion of the shape of the mouth or nose, or the colour of an eye. Ask a logician, or any common man, and he will no doubt tell you that a face is a face, a nose is a nose, a tree is a tree, and that he can see what it is as well as another. Ask a painter and he will tell you otherwise. Secondly, when it is asserted that we must necessarily have the idea of a particular sign, when we think of any in general, all that is intended by it is, I believe, that we must think of a particular height. This idea it is supposed must be
## particular and determinate, just as we must draw a line with a piece of
chalk, or make a mark with the slides of a measuring rule, in one place and not in the other. I think it may be shewn that this view of the question is also utterly fallacious, and out of the order of our ideas. The height of the individual is thus resolved with the ideas of the lines terminating or defining it, and the intermediate space of which it properly consists is entirely forgotten. For let us take any given height of a man, whether tall, short, or middle-sized, and let that height be as visible as you please, I would ask whether the actual height to which it amounts, does not consist of a number of other lengths: as if it be a tall man, the length will be six feet, and each of these feet will consist of so many inches, and those inches will be again made up of decimals, and those decimals of other subordinate parts, which must be all distinctly placed, and added together before the sum total, which they compose, can be pretended to be a distinct
## particular, or individual idea; I can only understand by a particular
thing either one precise individual, or a precise number of individuals.
Instead of its being true that all general ideas of extension are deducible to particular positive extension, the reverse proposition is I think demonstrable: that all particular extensions, the most positive and distinct, are never any thing else than a more or less vague notion of extension in general. In any given visible object we have always the general idea of something extended, and never of the precise length; for the precise length as it is thought to be is necessarily composed of a number of lengths too many, and too minute to be necessarily attended to, or jointly conceived by the mind, and at last loses itself in the infinite divisibility of matter. What sort of distinctness or individual can therefore be found in any visible image, or object of sense, I cannot well conceive: it seems to me like seeking for certainty in the dancing of insects in the evening sun, or for fixedness or rest in the motions of the sea. All particulars are thought nothing but generals, more or less defined by circumstances, but never perfectly so; in this all our knowledge both begins and ends, and if we think to exclude all generality from our ideas of things, we must be content to remain in utter ignorance. The proof that our ideas of particular things are not themselves particular, is the uncertainty and difficulty we have only in comparing them with one another. In looking at a line an inch long, I have a certain general impression of it, so that I can tell it is shorter than another, three or four times as long, drawn on the same sheet of paper, but I cannot immediately tell that it is shorter than one only a tenth or twentieth of an inch longer. The idea which I have of it is therefore not an exact one. In looking at a window I cannot precisely tell the number of panes of glass it contains, yet I can easily say whether they are few or many, whether the window is large or small. Now if all our ideas were made up of particulars, we never could pronounce generally whether there were few or many of these panes of glass, but we should know the precise number, or at least pitch on some precise number in our minds, and this we could not help knowing. There must be either 5, 10, 20, or 30; for it is in vain to urge that the idea in my mind is a floating one, and shifts from one of them to another, so that I cannot tell the moment after which it was; but what is this imperfect recollection but a confused contradictory and abstract idea? Here is a plain dilemma: it is a fact that we have some idea of a number of objects presented to us. It is also a fact that we do not know the precise number, nor can we assign any number confidently whether right or wrong. Whether this idea is but an abstract and general one it seems hard to say. Those who contend that we cannot have an idea of a man in general, without conceiving of some particular man, seem to have little reason, since the most particular idea we can form of a man, either in imagination or from the actual impression, is but a general idea. Those who say we cannot conceive of an army of men without conceiving of the individuals composing it, ought to go a step further, and affirm that we must represent to ourselves the features, form, complexion, size, posture, and dress, with every other circumstance belonging to each individual.
We must admit the notion of abstraction, first or last, unless any one will contend for this infinite refinement in our ideas of things, or assert that we have no idea at all. For the same process takes place in it, and is absolutely necessary to our most particular notions of things, as well as our most general, namely, that of abstracting from
## particulars, or of passing over the minute differences of things, taking
them in the gross, and attending to the general effect of a number of distinguished and distinguishable impressions. It is thus we arrive at our first notion of things, and thus that all our after knowledge is acquired. The knowledge upon which our ideas rest is general, and the only difference between abstract and particular, is that of being more or less general, of leaving out more or fewer circumstances, and more or fewer objects, perceived either at once or in succession, and forming either a particular whole, aggregate, or a class of things. It may be asked farther whether our ideas of things, however abstract in general, with respect to the objects they represent, are not in their own nature, and absolute existence particular. To this hard question I shall return the best answer I can.
1. It is sufficient to the present purpose that ideas are general in their representation, however particular in themselves. Each idea is something in itself, and not another idea. This is equally true of the most abstract or particular ideas of things. The abstract idea of a man is the abstract idea of a man, not the abstract idea of a horse, nor the
## particular one of any given individual man. It is characterized by
general properties, and distinguished by general circumstances, and is neither a mere word without any idea, nor a particular image of one thing; so the idea of a particular man, though still only a general result from a number of particulars is sufficiently positive for the actual purposes of thought, and distinguishable from that other general result or impression which institutes the idea of a particular horse, for instance.
2. That our general notions are any otherwise particular than as they are the same with themselves, and different from one another, is more than I know. I must demur on this question, whatever others may do. Whatever contradictions are involved in the one side of it, those on the other seem as great. For it is not easy to imagine any thing more absurd than the supposition that the idea of a line for instance is precisely, and to a hair’s breadth or to the utmost possible exactness, of a certain length, when neither the precise number nor the precise proportion of the parts composing this line are at all known. It is like saying that we cast up an account to the utmost degree of nicety, when not one of the items is known, but as of an average conjecture or in round numbers. We generally estimate our notion of a particular extension by the point or matter at all terminating it, and it seems as if this did not admit of an ambiguity, or variation. But in fact all ideas are a calculation of particulars, and when the parts are only known in gross, the sum total, or resulting idea can only be so too. The smallest division of which our notions are susceptible is a general idea. In the progress of the understanding, we never begin from absolute unity but always from something that is more. How then is it possible that these general conceptions should form a whole always commensurate to a precise number of absolute unity I cannot conceive, any more than how it is possible to express a fraction in whole numbers. The two things are incompatible. As to any thing like conscious individuality, i.e. that which assigneth limits to our ideas, we know they have it not.
3. I would observe that ideas, as far as they are distinct and
## particular, seem to involve a greater contradiction than when they are
confused and general. For, in proportion to their distinctness, must be the number of different acts of the mind excited at the same time; i.e. in proportion to the individuality of the image or idea, if I may so express myself, the thought ceases to be individual, inasmuch as the simplicity of the attention is thus necessarily broken and divided into a number of different actions, which yet are all united in the same conscious feeling, or there could be no connection between them. How then we should ever be able to conceive of things distinctly, clearly, and particularly, seems the wonder: not how different impressions acting at once on the mind should be confused, and as it were massed together, in a general feeling, for want of sufficient activity in the intellectual faculties to give form and a distinct place to all that throng of objects which at all times solicit the attention. Let any one make the experiment of counting a flock of sheep driven fast by him, and he will soon find his imagination unable to keep pace with the rapid succession of objects, and his idea of particular number slide into the general idea of multitude; not that because there are more objects than he possibly can count, he will think there are many, or that the word flock will present to his mind a mere name, without any particulars corresponding to it. Every act of the attention, every object we see or think of, presents a proof of the same kind.
4. I conceive that the mind has not been fairly dealt with in this and other similar questions of the same sort. Matter alone seems to have the privilege of presenting difficulties, and contradictions at every turn; but the moment any thing of this kind is observed in the understanding, all the petulance of logicians is up in arms, and the mind is made the mark on which they vent all the modes and figures of their impertinence. Let us take an example from some of these self-evident matters of fact, which contain at least as many, and as great contradictions, as any in the most abstruse metaphysical doctrine, such as in extension, motion, and the curve of lines. Now as to the first of these, extension: if we suppose it to be made up of points, which are in themselves without extension, but by their combination produce it, we must suppose two unextended things, when joined together, to become extended, which is like supposing, that by adding together several nothings, we can arrive at something. On the other hand, if we suppose the ultimate parts of which extension is composed, to be themselves extended, we then attribute extension to that which is indivisible, or affirm a thing to consist of parts, and to have none, at the same time. The old argument against the possibility of motion is well known: it was said that the body moving must either be in the place where it was, or in that into which it was passing. Now, if it was in either of these, or in any one place, it must be at rest; and as it could not be in both at once, it followed that a body moving could exist no where, or that there was no such thing as motion in nature. Again, a curve line is described mathematically by a point moving, but always out of a strait line. Now, a strait line is the nearest between any two points. But that a body should move forward, and not move strait forward to the next point to which it is going, seems to imply no less an absurdity than the affirming that a thing never moves in the direction in which it is going, but always out of it; for, if it moves in the same direction, the smallest moment of time, this is not a curve, but a strait line; and if it does not continue to move in the same direction at all, it seems utterly inconceivable that it should make any progress, or move either in a curve or a strait line. Yet any one who, on the strength of the contradiction involved in the ideas of extension, motion, or curve lines, should severally deny or disbelieve any one of them, would be thought to want common sense. I think there are certain facts of the mind which are equally evident and unaccountable. Those who contend that the one are to be admitted, and the other not, because the one are the objects of sense, and the other not, do not deserve any serious answer. It is as much a fact, that I remember having seen the sun yesterday, as that I see it to-day, and both of them are much more certain facts than that there is any such body as the sun really existing out of the mind.
I will now return to Berkeley, and endeavour to answer his chief objections to the doctrine of abstract ideas. First, then, I conceive that he has himself virtually given up the question, when he allows that the mind may be affected with the promise of a good thing, or terrified by the apprehension of danger, without thinking of any particular good or evil that is likely to befal us. What this idea of good or evil, which is not particular, can be, other than abstract, I cannot conceive; and to say that it is not an idea, but a mere feeling excited by custom, is an answer very little to the purpose. For this feeling, this custom, is itself a general impression, and could not, without a power of abstraction in the mind, think, without a power of being acted upon by a number of different impulses of pleasure and pain, concurring to produce a general effect, abstracted from the particular feelings themselves, or the objects first exciting them. All abstract ideas are several impressions of the same kind, and are merely customary affections of the mind, not distinct images of things. But if it be said that the word idea properly signifies an image, and must be something distinct, then I answer, first, that this would only restrict the use of the word _idea_ to particular things, and not affect the real question in dispute, and secondly, that there is no such thing as a distinct and particular image in the mind. The manner in which Berkeley explains the nature of mathematical demonstrations, according to his system, shews its utter inadequateness to any purposes of general reasoning, and is a plain confession of the necessity of abstract ideas. For all the answer he gives to the question, how can we know any proposition to be true in general, from having found it so in a particular instance, comes to this, that though the diagram we have in view includes a number of
## particulars, yet we know the principle to be true generally, because
_there is not the least mention made of these particulars in the proof of the proposition_. But I would ask also, whether there is not the least thought of them in the mind? The truth is, that the mind upon Berkeley’s principle must think of the particular right angled, isosceles, triangle in question, or it can have no idea at all, for it has no general idea of a triangle to which it can apply the name generally. If we suppose that there is any such general form, or notion to which the other particular circumstances are merely superadded, and which may be left standing, though they are taken away, we then run immediately to all the absurdities of abstraction, which he so much wishes to avoid. If we then demonstrate the proposition of the
## particular diagram before us, as of a determinate size, shape, &c., this
demonstration cannot hold good generally. If we are supposed to omit all these particular circumstances in our minds, then we either demonstrate the proposition of the general and abstract idea of a triangle, or of no idea at all; for after the particulars are omitted, or not attended to by the mind, the only idea remaining must be a general one. Farther, that on which I am willing to rest the whole controversy, is the following remark, _viz._, that without the general idea of a line or triangle, there could be no particular one; that is, no idea of any one line or triangle, as of the same form, or as any way related to any other, so that there could be no common measure or line to connect any of our thoughts or reasoning together into a general conclusion. For to take the former instance as the most simple. When we speak of any
## particular extension, it is evident that we understand something which
is not particular. Besides what is peculiar to it, it must have something which is not peculiar to it, but general, to merit the common appellation. Berkeley says, ‘An idea which in itself is particular, becomes general, by being made to represent or stand for all other
## particular ideas _of the same sort_.’ I do request that the import of
these last words may be attended to. Do they suggest any idea or none; if they mean any thing, it must be something more than the particular ideas which are said to be of the same sort, _i.e._ some general notion of them. But this will involve all the absurdities of abstraction. If there is any thing in the mind besides these particular ideas themselves—any thing that compares or contrasts them, that refers to this or that belief, this comparison or classifying can be nothing but a perception of a general nature in which these things agree, or the general resemblance which the mind perceives between the several impressions. If there is no such comparison or perception of resemblance, or idea of abstract qualities, then there can be no idea answering to the words ‘of the same sort;’ but these particular ideas will be left standing by themselves, absolutely unconnected. As far as our ideas are merely particular, _i.e._ are negations of other ideas, so far they must be perfectly distinct from each other: there can be nothing between them to blend or associate them together. Each separate idea would be surrounded with a _chevaux de frise_ of its own, in a state of irreconcilable antipathy to every other idea, and the fair form of nature would present nothing but a number of discordant atoms. A
## particular line would no more represent another line, than it would
represent a point: one colour could no more resemble another colour, or suggest its idea, than it could that of a sound, or a smell; there could be no clue to make us class different shades of the same colour under one general name, any more than the most opposite: one triangle would be as distinct from another, as from a square or a cube, and so through the whole system of art and nature. There must be a mutual leaning, a greater proximity between some ideas than others: a common point to which they tend, that is a common quality: a general nature, in which they are identified: or there could not be in the mind more ideas of same or like, or different, or judgment, or reasoning, or truth, or falsehood, than in the stones in the fields, or the sands of the sea-shore. The idea of classing things implies only the same sort of general comparison, or abstract idea of likeness, that is necessary to the idea of any simple sensible quality of an object. In both cases, we only contemplate a number of things as alike or under the same general notion, without attending to their actual differences. Take the idea, for instance, of a slab of white marble. As long as only one such piece of marble is considered, it is supposed to be a particular object, and its whiteness is supposed to be perceived by the mind as a simple sensible quality. If, on the contrary, several such slabs of marble are presented to the mind, this is commonly considered as producing a general idea of marble and of whiteness. But this idea of whiteness, not as a quality of a particular thing, but as a common quality of different things, is rejected by the moderns as implying the supposition, that several different ideas can coalesce in the same general notion, which amounts, they say, to the contradiction that a thing may be the same, and different at the same time. Now I would affirm whatever there is absurd or inconceivable in this latter case applies equally to the former. For what possible idea can any man form of a slab of white marble, in any other way than that of abstraction? Is the idea of its whiteness as a sensible quality the idea of a point. Is it one single impression? This Berkeley and others deny, for they say there can be no idea of colour without extension, or of quality without quantity. If there are in this object several impressions of colour, I would ask are they all distinctly perceived? Are they all the same? Or if not, are all their differences perceived by the mind, before it possibly can be impressed with the general idea of a certain sensible quality, or that the object before it is white? Is the mind aware of even the slightest stain in this object, of every thing that may happen to vary it? Yet, if the idea falls anything short of this minute and perfect knowledge, it can only be an imperfect and general notion. That is, a number of differences must be massed together in a common feeling of likeness, and a number of separate parts make up the idea of a given object. Yet this is all that is implied in forming the ideas of whiteness in general, as belonging to several objects, or of colour, or extension, or any other idea whatever, drawn from numberless objects, impressed at numberless times. If particular objects or qualities were single things, there would then be some precise limit between them and abstract or general ideas, but as the most particular object, or qualities, as well as the most general combinations and classes of things are necessarily confused and mixed results, and nothing more than a number of impressions, never distinctly analyzed by the mind, there can be no general reasoning to disprove abstracted ideas in the common sense of the word.
ON THE WRITINGS OF HOBBES
In the following Essays I shall attempt to give some account of the rise and progress of modern metaphysics, to state the opinions of the principal writers who have treated on the subject, from the time of Lord Bacon to the present day, and to examine the arguments by which they are supported. In the first place, it will be my object to shew what the real conclusions of the most celebrated authors were, and the steps by which they arrived at them: to trace the connexion or point out the difference between their several systems, as well as to inquire into the peculiar bias and turn of their minds, and in what their true strength or weakness lay. This will undoubtedly be best done by an immediate reference to their works whenever the nature of the subject admits of it, or whenever their mode of reasoning is not so loose and desultory as to render the quotation of particular passages a useless as well as endless labour. In the History of English Philosophy, of which I published a prospectus some time ago, I intended to have gone regularly through with all the writers of any considerable note who fell within the limits of my plan, and to have given a detailed analysis of their several subjects and arguments. But this would lead to much greater length and minuteness of inquiry than seems consistent with my present object, and would besides, I am afraid, prove (what Hobbes, speaking of these subjects in general, calls) ‘but dry discourse.’ To avoid this as much as possible, I shall pass over all those writers who have not been distinguished either by the boldness of their opinions, or the logical precision of their arguments. Indeed I shall confine my attention more
## particularly to those who have made themselves conspicuous by deviating
from the beaten track, and who have struck out some original discovery or brilliant paradox; whose metaphysical systems trench the closest on morality, or whose speculations, by the interest as well as novelty attached to them, have become topics of general conversation.
Secondly, besides stating the opinions of others, one principal object which I shall have in view will be to act as judge or umpire between them, to distinguish, as far as I am able, the boundaries of true and false philosophy, and to try if I cannot lay the foundation of a system more conformable to reason and experience, and, in its practical results at least, approaching nearer to the common sense of mankind, than the one which has been generally received by the most knowing persons who have attended to such subjects within the last century; I mean the material or _modern_ philosophy, as it has been called. According to this philosophy, as I understand it, all thought is to be resolved into sensation, all morality into the love of pleasure, and all action into mechanical impulse. These three propositions, taken together, embrace almost every question relating to the human mind, and in their different ramifications and intersections form a net, not unlike that used by the enchanters of old, which, whosoever has once thrown over him, will find all his efforts to escape vain, and his attempts to reason freely on any subject in which his own nature is concerned, baffled and confounded in every direction.
This system, which first rose at the suggestion of Lord Bacon, on the ruins of the school-philosophy, has been gradually growing up to its present height ever since, from a wrong interpretation of the word _experience_, confining it to a knowledge of things without us; whereas it in fact includes all knowledge relating to objects either within or out of the mind, of which we have any direct and positive evidence. We only know that we ourselves exist, the most certain of all truths, from the experience of what passes within ourselves. Strictly speaking, all other facts of which we are not immediately conscious, are so in a secondary and subordinate sense only. Physical experience is indeed the foundation and the test of that part of philosophy which relates to physical objects: further, physical analogy is the only rule by which we can extend and apply our immediate knowledge, or infer the effects to be produced by the different objects around us. But to say that physical experiment is either the test or source or guide of that other part of philosophy which relates to our internal perceptions, that we are to look to external nature for the form, the substance, the colour, the very life and being of whatever exists in our minds, or that we can only infer the laws which regulate the phenomena of the mind from those which regulate the phenomena of matter, is to confound two things entirely distinct. Our knowledge of mental phenomena from consciousness, reflection, or observation of their correspondent signs in others is the true basis of metaphysical inquiry, as the knowledge of _facts_, commonly so called, is the only solid basis of natural philosophy.
To say that the operations of the mind and the operations of matter are in reality the same, so that we may always make the one exponents of the other, is to assume the very point in dispute, not only without any evidence, but in defiance of every appearance to the contrary. Lord Bacon was undoubtedly a great man, indeed one of the greatest that have adorned this or any other country. He was a man of a clear and active spirit, of a most fertile genius, of vast designs, of general knowledge, and of profound wisdom. He united the powers of imagination and understanding in a greater degree than almost any other writer. He was one of the strongest instances of those men, who by the rare privilege of their nature are at once poets and philosophers, and see equally into both worlds. The schoolmen and their followers attended to nothing but essences and species, to laboured analyses and artificial deductions. They seem to have alike disregarded both kinds of experience, that relating to external objects, and that relating to the observation of our own internal feelings. From the imperfect state of knowledge, they had not a sufficient number of facts to guide them in their experimental researches; and intoxicated with the novelty of their vain distinctions, taught by rote, they would be tempted to despise the clearest and most obvious suggestions of their own minds. Subtile, restless, and self-sufficient, they thought that truth was only made to be disputed about, and existed no where but in their demonstrations and syllogisms. Hence arose their ‘logomachy’—their everlasting word-fights, their sharp debates, their captious, bootless controversies.
As Lord Bacon expresses it, ‘they were made fierce with dark keeping,’ signifying that their angry and unintelligible contests with one another were owing to their not having any distinct objects to engage their attention. They built altogether on their own whims and fancies, and buoyed up by their specific levity, they mounted in their airy disputations in endless flights and circles, clamouring like birds of prey, till they equally lost sight of truth and nature. This great man therefore intended an essential service to philosophy, in wishing to recall the attention to facts and ‘experience’ which had been almost entirely neglected; and thus, by incorporating the abstract with the concrete, and general reasoning with individual observation, to give to our conclusions that solidity and firmness which they must otherwise always want. He did nothing but insist on the necessity of ‘experience,’ more particularly in natural science; and from the wider field that is open to it there, as well as the prodigious success it has met with, this latter application of the word, in which it is tantamount to physical experiment, has so far engrossed the whole of our attention, that mind has for a good while past been in some danger of being overlaid by matter. We run from one error into another; and as we were wrong at first, so in altering our course, we have turned about to the opposite extreme. We despised ‘experience’ altogether before; now we would have nothing but ‘experience,’ and that of the grossest kind.
We have, it is true, gained much by not consulting the suggestions of our own minds in questions where they inform us of nothing; namely, in the particular laws and phenomena of the natural world; and we have hastily concluded, reversing the rule, that the best way to arrive at the knowledge of ourselves also, was to lay aside the dictates of our own consciousness, thoughts, and feelings, as deceitful and insufficient guides, though they are the only means by which we can obtain the least light upon the subject. We seem to have resigned the natural use of our understandings, and to have given up our own existence as a nonentity. We look for our thoughts and the distinguishing properties of our minds in some image of them in matter, as we look to see our faces in a glass. We no longer decide physical problems by logical dilemmas, but we decide questions of logic by the evidences of the senses. Instead of putting our reason and invention to the rack indifferently on all questions, whether we have any previous knowledge of them or not, we have adopted the easier method of suspending the use of our faculties altogether, and settling tedious controversies by means of ‘four champions fierce—hot, cold, moist and dry,’ who with a few more of the retainers and hangers-on of matter determine all questions relating to the nature of man and the limits of the human understanding very learnedly. That which we seek however, namely, the nature of the mind and the laws by which we think, feel, and act, we must discover in the mind itself or not at all. The mind has laws, powers, and principles of its own, and is not the mere puppet of matter. This general bias in favour of mechanical reasoning and physical experiment, which was the consequence of the previous total neglect of them in matters where they were strictly necessary, was strengthened by the powerful aid of Hobbes, who was indeed the father of the modern philosophy. His strong mind and body appear to have resisted all impressions but those which were derived from the downright blows of matter: all his ideas seemed to lie like substances in his brain: what was not a solid, tangible, distinct, palpable object was to him nothing. The external image pressed so close upon his mind that it destroyed the power of consciousness, and left no room for attention to any thing but itself. He was by nature a materialist. Locke assisted greatly in giving popularity to the same scheme, as well by espousing many of Hobbes’s metaphysical principles as by the doubtful resistance which he made to the rest. And it has been perfected and has received its last polish and roundness in the hands of some French philosophers, as Condillac and others. It has been generally supposed that Mr. Locke was the first person who, in his ‘Essay on the Human Understanding’ established the modern metaphysical system on a solid and immoveable basis. This is a great mistake. The system, such as it is, existed entire in all its general principles in Hobbes before him; this was never unequivocally or explicitly avowed by the author of the ‘Essay on the Human Understanding.’ Locke merely endeavoured to accommodate Hobbes’s leading principle to the more popular opinions of the time; and all that succeeding writers have done to improve upon his system, and clear it of inconsistent and extraneous matter, has only tended to reduce it back to the purity and simplicity in which it is to be found in Hobbes. The immediate and professed object of both these writers is indeed the same, namely, to account for our ideas and the formation of the human understanding from sensible impressions. But in the execution of this design, Mr. Locke has deviated widely and at almost every step from his predecessor. This difference would almost unavoidably arise from the natural character of their minds, which were the most opposite conceivable. Hobbes had the utmost reliance on himself, and was impatient of the least doubt or contradiction. He saw from the beginning to the end of his system. He is always therefore on firm ground, and never once swerves from his object. He is at no pains to remove objections, or soften consequences. Granting his first principle, all the rest follows of course. There is an air of grandeur in the stern confidence with which he stands alone in the world of his own opinions, regardless of his contemporaries, and conscious that he is the founder of a new race of thinkers. Locke, on the other hand, was a man, who without the same comprehensive grasp of thought had a greater deference for the opinions of others, and was of a much more cautious and circumspect turn of mind. He could not but meet with many things in the peremptory assertions of Hobbes that must make him pause, that he would be at a loss to reconcile to an attentive observation of what passed in his own mind, and that would equally shock the prevailing notions both of the learned and the ignorant. He was therefore led to consider the different objections to the system which had been left unanswered and unnoticed, to make a compromise between the received doctrines, and the violent paradoxes contained in the ‘Leviathan’ and the ‘Treatise of Human Nature,’ or to admit these last with so many qualifications, with so much circumlocution and preparation, and after such an appearance of the most mature and candid examination, and of willingness to be convinced on the other side of the question, as to obviate the offensive and harsh effect which accompanies the abrupt dogmatism of the original author. It was perhaps necessary that the opinions of Hobbes should undergo this sort of metamorphosis before they could gain a hearing: as the direct rays of the sun must be blunted and refracted by passing through some denser medium in order to be borne by common eyes. So sheathed and softened, their sharp, unpleasant points taken off, his doctrines almost immediately met with a favourable reception, and became popular. The general principle being once established without its particular consequences, and the public mind assured, it was soon found an easy task to point out the inconsistency of Mr. Locke’s reasoning in many respects, and to give a more decided tone to his philosophical system. Berkeley was one of the first who tried the experiment of pushing his principles into the verge of paradox on the question of abstract ideas, which he has done with admirable dexterity and clearness, but without going beyond the explicitness of Hobbes on the same question. Subsequent writers added different chapters to supply the deficiencies of the Essay, which, with scarcely a single exception, may be found essentially comprized in that institute and digest of modern philosophy, our author’s ‘Leviathan.’
In thus giving the praise of originality and force of mind to Hobbes, and regarding Locke merely as his follower, I may be thought to venture on dangerous ground, or to lay unhallowed hands on a reputation which is dear to every lover of truth. But if something is due to fame, something is also due to justice. I confess however, that having brought this charge against the ‘Essay on the Human Understanding,’ I am bound to make it good in the fullest manner; otherwise, I shall be inexcusable.
What I therefore propose in the remainder of the present Essay is to show that Mr. Locke was not really the founder of the modern system of philosophy as it respects the human mind; and I shall think that I have sufficiently established this point, if I can make it appear, both that the principle itself on which that system rests, and all the striking consequences which have been deduced from it, are to be found in the writings of Hobbes, more clearly, decidedly, and forcibly expressed than they are in the ‘Essay on the Human Understanding.’ When I speak of the principle of the modern metaphysical system, I mean the assumption that the operations of the intellect are only a continuation of the impulses existing in matter, or that all the thoughts and conceptions of the mind are nothing more nor less than various modifications of the original impressions of things on a being endued with sensation or simple perception. This system considers ideas merely as they are caused by external objects, acting on the organs of sense, and tries to account for them on that hypothesis solely. It is upon this principle of excluding the understanding as a distinct faculty or power from all share in its own operations, that the whole of Hobbes’s reasoning proceeds. Let us see what he makes of it.
The first part of the ‘Leviathan,’ entitled ‘Of Man,’ begins in this manner:
## CHAPTER I.—OF SENSE.—‘Concerning the thoughts of man, I will consider
them, first singly, and afterwards in train, or dependence upon one another. Singly, they are every one a representation or appearance of some quality or other accident of a body without us; which is commonly called an _object_: Which object worketh on the eyes, ears, and other parts of man’s body; and by diversity of working, produceth diversity of appearances.
‘The Original of them all is that which we call SENSE: For there is no conception in a man’s mind which hath not at first, totally or by parts, been begotten upon the organs of sense. The rest are derived from that original.
‘The cause of sense is the external body or object which presseth the organ proper to each sense, either immediately as in the taste and touch, or mediately as in seeing, hearing, and smelling: which pressure by the mediation of nerves, and other strings and membranes of the body, continued inwards to the Brain and Heart, causeth there a resistance or counter-pressure, or endeavour of the heart to deliver itself: which endeavour, because _outward_, seemeth to be some matter without. And this seeming or fancy is that which men call sense: and consisteth to the eye, in a light or colour figured; to the ear, in a sound; to the nostril, in an odour; to the tongue and palate, in a savour, and to the rest of the body in heat, cold, hardness, softness, and such other qualities, as we discern by feeling. All which qualities called _sensible_ are in the object that causeth them but so many several motions of the matter by which it presseth our organs diversely. Neither in us that are pressed are they any thing else but divers motions; for motion produceth nothing but motion. But their appearance to us is fancy, the same waking as dreaming. And as pressing, rubbing, or striking the eye maketh us fancy a light, and pressing the ear produceth a din, so do the bodies also we see or hear produce the same by their strong, though unobserved action. For if those colours and sounds were in the bodies or objects that cause them, they could not be severed from them, as by glasses and in echoes by reflection we see they are: where we know the thing we see is in one place, the appearance in another, and though at some certain distance, the real and very object seems invested with the fancy it begets in us; yet still the object is one thing, the image or fancy is another. So that sense in all cases is nothing else but original fancy; caused, as I have said, by the pressure, that is, by the motion of external things upon our eyes, ears, and other organs thereunto ordained.
‘But the Philosophy-schools, through all the universities of Christendom, grounded upon certain texts of Aristotle, teach another doctrine; and say, For the cause of vision, that the thing seen sendeth forth on every side a _visible species_, (in English) _a visible show_, _apparition_, _aspect_, or _being seen_; the receiving whereof into the eye, is _seeing_. And for the cause of _hearing_, that the thing heard sendeth forth an _audible species_, that is, an _audible aspect_, or _audible being seen_; which entering at the ear, maketh _hearing_. Nay, for the cause of _understanding_ also, they say the thing understood sendeth forth an _intelligible species_, that is an _intelligible being seen_; which coming into the understanding, makes us understand. I say not this as disapproving the use of universities: but because I am to speak hereafter of their office in a commonwealth, I must let you see on all occasions by the way, what things would be amended in them; amongst which the frequency of insignificant speech is one.’—_Leviathan_, p. 4.
Thus far our author. It is evident that in this account he has laid the foundation of Berkeley’s ideal system, though he does not seem any where to have gone the whole length of that doctrine. He has entered more at large into this point in the ‘Discourse of Human Nature,’ published in 1640, ten years before the ‘Leviathan’; and as the subject is curious, and treated in a very decisive way, I will quote the concluding passage, which is a recapitulation of the rest.
‘As colour is not inherent in the object, but an effect thereof upon us, caused by such motion in the object as hath been described; so neither is sound in the thing we hear, but in ourselves. One manifest sign thereof is, that as a man may see, so also he may hear double or treble, by multiplication of echoes, which echoes are sounds as well as the original, and not being in one and the same place, cannot be inherent in the body that maketh them. And to proceed to the rest of the senses, it is apparent enough that the smell and taste of the same thing are not the same to every man, and therefore are not in the thing smelt or tasted, but in the men. So likewise the heat we feel from the fire is manifestly in us, and is quite different from the heat which is in the fire: for our heat is pleasure or pain, according as it is great or moderate; but in the coal there is no such thing. By this the fourth and last proposition is proved; viz. That as in vision, so also in conceptions that arise from other senses, the subject of their inherence is not in the object, but in the sentient. And from hence also it followeth that whatsoever accidents or qualities our senses make us think there be in the world, they be not there, but are seeming and apparitions only: the things that really are in the world without us, are those motions by which these seemings are caused. And this is the great deception of sense, which also is to be by sense corrected: for as sense telleth me, when I see directly, that the colour seemeth to be in the object; so also sense telleth me when I see by reflection, that colour is not in the object.’—_Human Nature_, chap. ii. p. 9.
The second chapter of the ‘Leviathan’ contains an account of the manner in which our ideas are generated, and is as follows:
‘That when a thing lies still, unless somewhat else stir it, it will lie still for ever, is a truth that no man doubts of. But that when a thing is in motion, it will eternally be in motion, unless somewhat else stay it, though the reason be the same (namely, that nothing can change itself) is not so easily assented to. For men measure not only other men, but all other things by themselves; and because they find themselves subject after motion to pain and lassitude, think every thing else grows weary of motion, and seeks repose of its own accord; little considering whether it be not some other motion wherein that desire of rest they find in themselves consisteth. From hence it is, that the Schools say, heavy bodies fall downward out of an appetite to rest, and to conserve their nature in that place which is most proper for them: ascribing appetite and knowledge of what is good for their conservation (which is more than man has) to things inanimate, absurdly.
‘When a body is once in motion, it moveth (unless something else hinder it) eternally: and whatsoever hindereth it, cannot in an instant, but in time and by degrees quite extinguish it. And as we see in the water, though the wind cease, the waves give not over rolling for a long time after; so also it happeneth in that motion which is made in the internal parts of a man then, when he sees, hears, &c. For after the object is removed or the eye shut, we still retain an image of the thing seen, though more obscure than when we see it. And this is it the Latins call _imagination_, from the image made in seeing; and apply the same, though improperly, to all the other senses. But the Greeks call it _fancy_; which signifies appearance, and is as proper to one sense, as to another. Imagination is therefore nothing but _decaying sense_; and is found in man and many other living creatures, as well sleeping as waking.
‘The decay of sense in men waking is an obscuring of it in such manner as the light of the sun obscureth the light of the stars, which stars do no less exercise their virtue by which they are visible in the day than in the night. But because amongst many strokes, which our eyes, ears, and other organs receive from external bodies, the predominant only is sensible, therefore the light of the sun being predominant, we are not affected with the action of the stars. And any object being removed from our eyes, though the impression it made in us remain; yet other objects more present succeeding, and working on us, the imagination of the past is obscured, and made weak; as the voice of a man is in the noise of the day. From whence it follows, that the longer the time is, after the sight or sense of any objects the weaker is the imagination. For the continual change of man’s body destroys in time the parts which in sense were moved: so that distance of time and of place hath one and the same effect in us. For as at a great distance of place, that which we look at appears dim, and without distinction of the smaller parts, and as voices grow weak and inarticulate, so also after great distance of time, our imagination of the past is weak; and we lose (for example) of cities we have seen many particular streets, and of actions, many particular circumstances. This decaying sense, when we would express the thing itself (I mean fancy itself) we call Imagination, as I said before: but when we would express the decay, and signify that the sense is fading, old and past, it is called _Memory_. So that imagination and memory are but one thing which for divers considerations hath divers names. Much memory or memory of many things is called Experience.
‘Again, imagination being only of those things which have been formerly perceived by sense, either all at once, or by parts at several times, the former (which is the imagining the whole object as it was presented to the sense) is _simple imagination_; as when one imagineth a man or horse which he hath seen before. The other is _compounded_, as when from the sight of a man at one time, and of a horse at another, we conceive in our mind a centaur. So when a man compoundeth the image of his own person with the image of the actions of another man; as when a man conceives himself a Hercules or an Alexander (which happeneth often to them which are much taken with the reading of Romaunts) it is a compound imagination, and properly but a fiction of the mind.
‘There be also other imaginations that rise in man, (though waking) from the great impression made in sense: as from gazing upon the sun, the impression leaves an image of the sun before our eyes a long time after; and from being long and vehemently attent upon geometrical figures, a man shall in the dark (though awake) have the image of lines and angles before his eyes: which kind of fancy hath no particular name; as being a thing that doth not commonly fall into men’s discourse.
‘The imaginations of them that sleep are those we call dreams: and these also (as all other imaginations) have been before, either totally or by parcels in the sense, and because the brain and nerves, which are the necessary organs of sense, are so benumbed in sleep, as not easily to be moved by the action of external objects, there can happen in sleep no imagination; and therefore no dream but what proceeds from the agitation of the inward parts of man’s body; which inward parts, for the connexion they have with the brain and other organs, when they be distempered, do keep the same in motion; whereby the imaginations there formerly made, appear as if a man were waking; saving that the organs of sense being now benumbed, so as there is no new object, which can master and obscure them with a more vigorous impression, a dream must needs be more clear in this silence of sense, than are our waking thoughts. And hence it cometh to pass, that it is a hard matter, and by many thought impossible, to distinguish exactly between sense and dreaming. For my part, when I consider that in dreams I do not often, nor constantly think of the same persons, places, subjects, and actions that I do waking; nor remember so long a train of coherent thoughts dreaming, as at other times; and because waking I often observe the absurdity of dreams, but never dream of the absurdities of my waking thoughts,—I am well satisfied, that being awake, I know I dream not; though when I dream, I think myself awake.’—_Leviathan_, pp. 4, 5, 6.
The concluding paragraph of this Chapter is remarkable.
‘The imagination that is raised in man (or any other creature endued with the faculty of imagining) by words or other voluntary signs, is that we generally call _Understanding_: and is common to man and beast. For a dog by custom will understand the call or rating of his master, and so will many other beasts. That understanding which is peculiar to man, is the understanding not only his will, but his conceptions and thoughts, by the sequel and contexture of the names of things into affirmations, negations, and other forms of speech; and of this kind of understanding I shall speak hereafter.’—Page 8.
As in the first two chapters Mr. Hobbes endeavours to show that all our thoughts, considered singly or in themselves, have their origin in sensation, so in the next chapter, he resolves all their combinations or connexions one with another into the principle of association, or the coexistence of their sensible impressions.
‘By consequence or train of thoughts,’ he says, ‘I understand that succession of one thought to another, which is called (to distinguish it from discourse in words) _mental discourse_.’
‘When a man thinketh on any thing whatsoever, his next thought after it is not altogether so casual as it seems to be. Not every thought to every thought succeeds indifferently. But as we have no imagination, whereof we have not formerly had sense in whole or in parts; so we have no transition from one imagination to another, whereof we never had the like before in our senses. The reason whereof is this. All fancies are motions within us, reliques of those made in sense: and those motions that succeeded one another in the sense, continue also together after sense: insomuch as the former coming again to take place, and be predominant, the latter followeth, by coherence of the matter moved, in such manner, as water upon a plane table is drawn which way any one part of it is guided by the finger. But because in sense to one and the same thing perceived, sometimes one thing, sometimes another succeedeth, it comes to pass in time, that in the imagining of any thing, there is no certainty what we shall imagine next. Only this is certain, it shall be something that succeeded the same before, at one time or another.’—Page 9.
The comprehension and precision with which the law of association is here unfolded as the key to every movement of the mind, and as regulating every wandering thought, cannot be too much admired; it is enough to say that Hartley, who certainly understood more of the power of association than any other man, has added nothing to this short passage, as far as relates to the succession of ideas. He has indeed extended its application in unravelling the fine web of our affections and feelings, by showing how one idea transfers the feeling of pleasure or pain to others associated with it, which is not here noticed. Whether this principle really has all the extent and efficacy ascribed to it by either of these writers will be made the subject of a future inquiry. How well our author understood the question, and how much it had assumed a consistent and systematic form in his mind will appear from the instances he brings in illustration of this intricate and at the time almost unthought-of subject.
‘The train of thoughts or mental discourse is of two sorts. The first is unguided, without design and inconstant; wherein there is no passionate thought to govern and direct those that follow to itself as the end and scope of some desire or other passion; in which case the thoughts are said to wander and seem impertinent one to another as in a dream. Such are commonly the thoughts of men, that are not only without company, but also without care of any thing: though even then their thoughts are as busy as at other times, but without harmony, as the sound which a lute out of tune would yield to any man, or in tune to one that could not play. And yet in this wild ranging of the mind, a man may ofttimes perceive the way of it, and the dependence of one thought upon another. For in a discourse of our present civil war, what could seem more impertinent than to ask (as one did) what was the value of a Roman penny? Yet the coherence to me was manifest enough. For the thoughts of the war introduced the thought of the delivering up the king to his enemies; the thought of that brought in the thought of the delivering up of Christ; and that again the thought of the thirty pence, which was the price of that treason: and thence easily followed that malicious question; and all this in a moment of time; for thought is quick.
‘The second’ [that is the second sort of association] ‘is more constant, as being regulated by some desire, and design. For the impression made by such things as we desire or fear, is strong and permanent, or, if it cease for a time, of quick return; so strong it is sometimes as to hinder and break our sleep. From desire ariseth the thought of some means we have seen produce the like of what we aim at: and from the thought of that, the thought of means to that mean, and so continually till we come to some beginning within our own power.’
He adds,—‘This train of regulated thoughts is of two kinds: one, when of an effect imagined, we seek the causes or means that produce it; and this is common to man and beast. The other is when imagining anything whatsoever, we seek all the possible effects that can by it be produced: that is to say, we imagine what we can do with it when we have it. Of which I have not at any time seen any sign but in man only; for this is a curiosity hardly incident to the nature of any living creature that has no other passion but sensual, such as are hunger, thirst, lust, and anger. In sum, the discourse of the mind when it is governed by design, is nothing but seeking or the faculty of invention, which the Latins call _sagacitas_ and _solertia_, a finding out of the causes of some effect, present or past; or of the effects of some present or past cause. Sometimes a man desires to know the event of an action; and then he thinketh of some like action past, and the events thereof one after another; supposing like events will follow like actions. As he that foresees what will become of a criminal, re-cons what he has seen follow on the like crime before; having this order of thoughts, the crime, the officer, the prison, the judge, and the gallows, which kind of thoughts is called foresight, and prudence or providence; and sometimes wisdom; though such conjecture, through the difficulty of observing all circumstances, be very fallacious. But this is certain; by how much one man has more experience of things past than another; by so much also he is more prudent; and his expectations the seldomer fail him. The present only has a being in nature; things past have a being in the memory only, but things to come have no being at all; the future being but a fiction of the mind, applying the sequels of actions past to the actions that are present; which with most certainty is done by him that has most experience; but not with certainty enough, and though it be called prudence when the event answereth our expectation, yet in its own nature it is but presumption; for the foresight of things to come, which is providence, belongs only to him by whose will they are to come: from him only, and supernaturally, proceeds prophecy. The best prophet naturally is the best guesser; and the best guesser, he that is most versed and studied in the matters he guesses at; for he hath most signs to guess by.’—Page 10.
After this account he immediately adds,—
‘There is no other act of man’s mind that I can remember, naturally planted in him, so as to need no other thing to the exercise of it but to be born a man, and live with the use of his five senses. Those other faculties, of which I shall speak by and by, and which seem proper to man only, are acquired, and increased by study and industry; and of most men learned by instruction and discipline; and proceed all from the invention of words and speech: for besides sense and thoughts, and the train of thoughts, the mind of man has no other motion, though by the help of speech and method, the same faculties may be improved to such a height, as to distinguish men from all other living creatures.’—Page 11.
The conclusion of this chapter in which the author treats of the limits of the imagination is too important, and has laid the foundation of too many speculations, to be passed over. ‘Whatsoever we imagine is finite. Therefore there is no idea, or conception of any thing we call infinite. No man can have in his mind an image of infinite magnitude; nor conceive infinite swiftness, infinite time, or infinite force, or infinite power. When we say any thing is infinite, we signify only that we are not able to conceive the ends and bounds of the thing named; having no conception of the thing, but of our own inability: and therefore the name of God is used, not to make us conceive him (for he is incomprehensible and his greatness and power are inconceivable) but that we may honour him. And because whatsoever we conceive has been perceived first by sense, either all at once, or by parts, a man can have no thought, representing any thing, not subject to sense. No man, therefore, can conceive any thing, but he must conceive it in some place, and indued with some determinate magnitude, and which may be divided into parts; not that any thing is all in this place, and all in another place at the same time; nor that two or more things can be in one and the same place at once: for none of these things ever have, nor can be incident to sense; but are absurd speeches, taken upon credit (without any signification at all), from deceived philosophers, and deceived, or deceiving schoolmen.’—Page 11.
By the extracts which I shall next borrow from his account of language and reasoning, it will appear that our author not only threw out the first hints of the modern system, which reduces all reasoning and understanding to the mechanism of language, but that by a very high kind of abstraction, he carried it to perfection at once. The whole race of plodding commentators, or dashing paradox-mongers since his time have not advanced a step beyond him. I shall give this part somewhat at large, both because the question is intricate in itself, and as it will serve as a specimen of his general mode of writing, in which dry sarcasm, keen observation, extensive thought, and the most rigid logic conveyed in a concise and masterly style, are all brought to bear upon the same object.
‘The invention of printing,’ he says, ‘though ingenious, compared with the invention of letters is no great matter. But who was the first that found the use of letters, is not known. He that first brought them into Greece, men say, was Cadmus, the son of Agenor, King of Phœnicia. A profitable invention for continuing the memory of time past, and the conjunction of mankind, dispersed into so many and distant regions of the earth; and withal difficult, as proceeding from a watchful observation of the divers motions of the tongue, palate, lips, and other organs of speech, whereby to make as many differences of characters to remember them; but the most noble and profitable invention of all other, was that of speech, consisting of names or appellations, and their connections; whereby men register their thoughts, recall them when they are past, and also declare them one to another for mutual utility and conversation; without which there had been amongst men, neither commonwealth, nor society, nor contract, nor peace, no more than amongst lions, bears, and wolves. The first author of speech was God himself, that instructed Adam how to name such creatures as he presented to his sight; for the scripture goeth no farther in this matter. But this was sufficient to direct him to add more names, as the experience and use of the creatures should give him occasion; and to join them in such manner by degrees, as to make himself understood, and so by succession of time, so much language might be gotten, as he had found use for; though not so copious as an orator or philosopher has need of: for I do not find any thing in the scripture, out of which, directly or by consequence can be gathered, that Adam was taught the names of all figures, numbers, measures, colours, sounds, fancies, relations; much less the names of words and speech, as, general, special, affirmative, negative, interrogative, optative, infinitive, all which are useful; and least of all, of entity, intentionality, quiddity, and other insignificant words of the school.
‘The manner how speech serveth to the remembrance of the consequence of causes and effects, consisteth in the imposing of names, and the connexion of them. Of names, some are proper, and singular to one only thing; as _Peter_, _John_, _this man_, _this tree_: and some are common to many things; _man_, _horse_, _tree_; every of which though but one name, is nevertheless the name of divers particular things; in respect of all which together, it is called an universal; there being nothing in the world universal but names; for the things named are every one of them individual and singular. One universal name is imposed on many things for their similitude in some quality, or other accident: and whereas a proper name bringeth to mind one thing only, universals recall any one of those many. By this imposition of names, some of larger, some of stricter signification, we turn the reckoning of the consequences of things imagined in the mind, into a reckoning of the consequences of appellations. For example: a man that hath no use of speech at all, that is born and remains perfectly deaf and dumb, if he set before his eyes a triangle, and by it two right angles (such as are the corners of a square figure,) he may by meditation compare and find, that the three angles of that triangle are equal to those two right angles that stand by it: but if another triangle be shown him different in shape from the former, he cannot know without a new labour, whether the three angles of that also be equal to the same. But he that hath the use of words, when he observes that such equality was consequent, not to the length of the sides, nor to any other particular thing in his triangle but only to this, that the sides were straight, and the angles three and that that was all for which he named it a triangle, will boldly conclude universally that such equality of angles is in all triangles whatsoever, and register his invention in these general terms: every triangle hath its three angles equal to two right angles. And thus the consequence found in one particular, comes to be registered and remembered as an universal rule; discharges our mental reckoning of time and place; delivers us from all labour of the mind, saving the first, and makes that which was found true here, and now, to be true in all times and places. But the use of words in registering our thoughts, is in nothing so evident as in numbering. A natural fool that could never learn by heart the order of numeral words, as _one_, _two_, and _three_, may observe every stroke of the clock, and nod to it, or say _one_, _one_; but can never know what hour it strikes. And it seems, there was a time when those names of number were not in use, and men were fain to apply their fingers of one or both hands to those things they desired to keep account of; and that thence it proceeds, that now our numeral words are but ten, in any nation, and in some but five, and then they begin again. And he that can tell ten, if he recite them out of order, will lose himself, and not know when he hath done: much less will he be able to add, and subtract, and perform all other operations of arithmetic. So that without words there is no possibility of reckoning of numbers; much less of magnitudes, of swiftness, of force, and other things, the reckoning whereof is necessary to the being, or well-being of mankind.’—_Leviathan_, chap. iv., pp. 12, 14.
The same train of reasoning occurs in the ‘Discourse of Human Nature,’ with some variation in the expression.
‘By the advantage of names it is that we are capable of science, which beasts for want of them are not; nor man, without the use of them; for as a beast misseth not one or two out of her many young ones, for want of those names of order, _one_, _two_, and _three_, and which we call _number_; so neither would a man without repeating orally or mentally those words of number, know how many pieces of money or other things lie before him. Seeing there be many conceptions of one and the same thing, and that for every conception we give it a several name, it followeth that for one and the same thing, we have many names or attributes; as to the same man we give the appellations of _just_, _valiant_, _strong_, _comely_, &c. And again, because from divers things we receive like conceptions, many things must needs have the same appellations: as to all things we _see_ we give the name of _visible_. Those names we give to many, are called universal to them all: as the name of _man_ to every
## particular of mankind. Such appellations as we give to one only thing,
we call individual, or singular; as _Socrates_ and other proper names, or by circumlocution, _He that writ the Iliads_, for _Homer_.
‘The universality of one name to many things hath been the cause that men think the _things_ are themselves universal: and so seriously contend that besides Peter and John, and all the rest of the men that are, have been, or shall be in the world, there is yet something else that we call man, viz. _Man in general_, deceiving themselves by taking the universal or general appellation for the thing it signifieth. For if one should desire the painter to make him the picture of a man, which is as much as to say of a man in general, he meaneth no more but that the painter should choose what man he pleaseth to draw, which must needs be some of them that are or have been or may be, none of which are universal. But when he would have him to draw the king or any particular person, he limiteth the painter to that one person he chooseth. It is plain therefore there is nothing universal but names, which are therefore called indefinite, because we limit them not ourselves, but leave them to be applied by the hearer: whereas a singular name is limited and restrained to one of the many things it signifieth, as when we say, _This man_, pointing to him, or giving him his proper name, or in some such way.’—_Human Nature_, chap. v. pp. 25, 26.
We shall have occasion to see, in the course of this inquiry, how exactly Berkeley’s account of the process of abstraction, in contradiction to Locke’s opinion, corresponds in every particular with this passage of our author. To return to his account of truth, reason, &c.
‘When two names are joined together into a consequence or affirmation, by the help of this little verb, _is_, as thus: _a man is a living creature_; if the latter name, _living creature_, signify all that the former name, _man_, signifieth, then the affirmation or consequence is true; otherwise false. For True and False are attributes of speech, not of things. And where speech is not, there is neither truth nor falsehood. Error there may be, as when we expect that which shall not be, or suspect what has not been: but in neither case can a man be charged with untruth.
‘Seeing, then, that truth consisteth in the right ordering of names in our affirmations, a man that seeketh precise truth had need to remember what every name he uses stands for, and to place it accordingly: or else he will find himself entangled in words, as a bird in lime-twigs. And therefore in Geometry (which is the only science that it has pleased God hitherto to bestow on mankind) men begin at settling the significations of their words, which settling of significations they call definitions, and place them in the beginning of their reckoning. By this it appears how necessary it is for any man that aspires to true knowledge to examine the definitions of former authors, and either to correct them when they are negligently set down, or to make them himself. For the errors of definition multiply themselves according as the reckoning proceeds; and lead men into absurdities which they at last see, but cannot avoid without reckoning anew from the beginning. From whence it happens that they which trust to books do as they that cast up many little sums into a greater, without considering whether those little sums were rightly cast up or not, and at last finding the error visible, and not mistrusting their first grounds, know not which way to clear themselves, but spend time in fluttering over their books, as birds that entering by the chimney, and finding themselves enclosed in a chamber, flutter at the false light of a glass window, for want of wit to consider which way they came in. So that in the right definition of names, lies the first use of speech, which is the acquisition of science, and in wrong or no definitions lies the first abuse, from which proceed all false and senseless tenets; which make them that take their instruction from the authority of books and not from their own meditations, to be as much below the condition of ignorant men, as men endued with true science are above it. For between true science and erroneous doctrines, ignorance is in the middle. Natural sense and imagination are not subject to absurdity. Nature itself cannot err; and as men abound in copiousness of language, so they become more wise or more mad than ordinary. Nor is it possible without letters for any man to become either excellently wise or (unless his memory be hurt by disease or ill constitution of organs) excellently foolish. For words are wise men’s counters, they do but reckon by them: but they are the money of fools, that value them by the authority of an Aristotle, a Cicero, a Thomas Aquinas, or any other doctor whatsoever.
‘Subject to names is whatsoever can enter into, or be considered in an account, and be added one thing to another to make a sum, or subtracted one from another and leave a remainder. The Latins called accounts of money _rationes_, and accounting, _ratiocinatio_, and that which we in bills or books of accounts call _items_, they call _nomina_, or names; and thence it seems to proceed that they extended the word _ratio_ to the faculty of reckoning in all other things. The Greeks have but one word, λογος for both speech and reason, not that they thought there was no speech without reason, but no reason without speech: and the act of reasoning they call syllogism, which signifieth summing up (or putting together) the consequences of one saying to another. For reason is nothing but reckoning (that is, adding and subtracting) of the consequences of general names agreed upon for the marking and signifying of our thoughts; I say marking them, when we reckon by ourselves, and signifying them, when we demonstrate or approve our reckonings to other men.
‘And as in arithmetic, unpractised men must, and professors themselves may, often err, and cast up false, so also in any other subject of reasoning, the ablest, most attentive, and most practised men may deceive themselves, and infer false conclusions: not but that reason itself is always right reason, as well as arithmetic is a certain and infallible art. But no one man’s reason, nor the reason of any number of men makes the certainty: no more than an account is therefore well cast up, because a great many men have unanimously approved it. And, therefore, as when there is a controversy in an account, the parties must by their own accord set up for right reason the reason of some arbitrator or judge, so it is in all debates of what kind soever: and when men that think themselves wiser than all others, clamour and demand right reason for judge, yet seek no more but that things should be determined by no other men’s reason but their own, it is as intolerable in the society of men as it is in play, after trump is turned, to use for trump on every occasion that suit whereof they have most in their hand. For they do nothing else that will have every of their passions, as it comes to bear sway in them, to be taken for right reason, and that in their own controversies, betraying their want of right reason by the claim they lay to it.
‘When a man reckons without the use of words, which may be done in
## particular things (as when upon the sight of any one thing, we
conjecture what was likely to have preceded, or is likely to follow upon it), if that which he thought likely to have preceded it, hath not preceded it, this is called error, to which even the most prudent men are subject. But when we reason in words of general signification, and fall upon a general inference which is false, though it be commonly called error, it is indeed an absurdity or senseless speech. For error is but a deception in presuming that somewhat is past, or to come, of which, though it were not past, or not to come, yet there was no impossibility discoverable. But when we make a general assertion, unless it be a true one, the possibility of it is inconceivable. And words whereby we conceive nothing but the sound, are those we call absurd, insignificant, and nonsense. And, therefore, if a man should talk to me of _a round quadrangle_, or _accidents of bread in cheese_, or _immaterial substances_, or _of a free subject_, a _free-will_, or any _free_ but free from being hindered by opposition; I should not say he were in an error, but that his words were without meaning, that is to say, absurd.’—Chap. iv. v., pp. 15, 18, &c.
The account of the passions and affections which follows next in order, is the same in almost every particular as that which is given in modern treatises on this subject, except that Mr. Hobbes seems to make curiosity or the desire of knowledge, an original passion of the mind, peculiar to man. From this