1651 LEVIATHAN by Thomas Hobbes INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION
NATURE (the art whereby God hath made and governs the world)
is by the art of man, as in many other things, so in this also
imitated, that it can make an artificial animal. For seeing life
is but a motion of limbs, the beginning whereof is in some principal
part within, why may we not say that all automata (engines that
move themselves by springs and wheels as doth a watch) have an
artificial life? For what is the heart, but a spring; and the
nerves, but so many strings; and the joints, but so many wheels,
giving motion to the whole body, such as was intended by the
Artificer? Art goes yet further, imitating that rational and
most excellent work of Nature, man. For by art is created that
great LEVIATHAN called a COMMONWEALTH, or STATE (in Latin, CIVITAS),
which is but an artificial man, though of greater stature and
strength than the natural, for whose protection and defence it
was intended; and in which the sovereignty is an artificial soul,
as giving life and motion to the whole body; the magistrates
and other officers of judicature and execution, artificial joints;
reward and punishment (by which fastened to the seat of the sovereignty,
every joint and member is moved to perform his duty) are the
nerves, that do the same in the body natural; the wealth and
riches of all the particular members are the strength; salus
populi (the people's safety) its business; counsellors, by whom
all things needful for it to know are suggested unto it, are
the memory; equity and laws, an artificial reason and will; concord,
health; sedition, sickness; and civil war, death. Lastly, the
pacts and covenants, by which the parts of this body politic
were at first made, set together, and united, resemble that fiat,
or the Let us make man, pronounced by God in the Creation. To
describe the nature of this artificial man, I will consider
First, the matter thereof, and the artificer; both which is
man. Secondly, how, and by what covenants it is made; what are
the rights and just power or authority of a sovereign; and what
it is that preserveth and dissolveth it. Thirdly, what is a Christian
Commonwealth. Lastly, what is the Kingdom of Darkness.
Concerning the first, there is a saying much usurped of late,
that wisdom is acquired, not by reading of books, but of men.
Consequently whereunto, those persons, that for the most part
can give no other proof of being wise, take great delight to
show what they think they have read in men, by uncharitable censures
of one another behind their backs. But there is another saying
not of late understood, by which they might learn truly to read
one another, if they would take the pains; and that is, Nosce
teipsum, Read thyself: which was not meant, as it is now used,
to countenance either the barbarous state of men in power towards
their inferiors, or to encourage men of low degree to a saucy
behaviour towards their betters; but to teach us that for the
similitude of the thoughts and passions of one man, to the thoughts
and passions of another, whosoever looketh into himself and considereth
what he doth when he does think, opine, reason, hope, fear, etc.,
and upon what grounds; he shall thereby read and know what are
the thoughts and passions of all other men upon the like occasions.
I say the similitude of passions, which are the same in all men,-
desire, fear, hope, etc.; not the similitude of the objects of
the passions, which are the things desired, feared, hoped, etc.:
for these the constitution individual, and particular education,
do so vary, and they are so easy to be kept from our knowledge,
that the characters of man's heart, blotted and confounded as
they are with dissembling, lying, counterfeiting, and erroneous
doctrines, are legible only to him that searcheth hearts. And
though by men's actions we do discover their design sometimes;
yet to do it without comparing them with our own, and distinguishing
all circumstances by which the case may come to be altered, is
to decipher without a key, and be for the most part deceived,
by too much trust or by too much diffidence, as he that reads
is himself a good or evil man. But let one man read another by
his actions never so perfectly, it serves him only with his acquaintance,
which are but few. He that is to govern a whole nation must read
in himself, not this, or that particular man; but mankind: which
though it be hard to do, harder than to learn any language or
science; yet, when I shall have set down my own reading orderly
and perspicuously, the pains left another will be only to consider
if he also find not the same in himself. For this kind of doctrine
admitteth no other demonstration. THE FIRST PART OF MAN
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. To know the natural cause of sense is not very
necessary to the business now in hand; and I have elsewhere written
of the same at large. Nevertheless, to fill each part of my present
method, I will briefly deliver the same in this place. 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, as 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
anything else but diverse motions (for motion produceth nothing
but motion). But their appearance to us is fancy, the same waking
that dreaming. And as pressing, rubbing, or striking the eye
makes 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 seem 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, or aspect, or a 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. CHAPTER II
OF IMAGINATION
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 everything 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 downwards 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 hindreth 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, dreams, etc. 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, therefore, is nothing but
decaying sense; and is found in men and many other living creatures,
as well sleeping as waking. The decay of sense in men waking
is not the decay of the motion made in sense, but 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 followeth that the longer
the time is, after the sight or sense of any object, 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 diverse
considerations hath diverse 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,
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 imagines himself a Hercules or an
Alexander (which happeneth often to them that are much taken
with reading of romances), it is a compound imagination, and
properly but a fiction of the mind. There be also other imaginations
that rise in men, 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 images 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
in sense, 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, objects, 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.
And seeing dreams are caused by the distemper of some of the
inward parts of the body, diverse distempers must needs cause
different dreams. And hence it is that lying cold breedeth dreams
of fear, and raiseth the thought and image of some fearful object,
the motion from the brain to the inner parts, and from the inner
parts to the brain being reciprocal; and that as anger causeth
heat in some parts of the body when we are awake, so when we
sleep the overheating of the same parts causeth anger, and raiseth
up in the brain the imagination of an enemy. In the same manner,
as natural kindness when we are awake causeth desire, and desire
makes heat in certain other parts of the body; so also too much
heat in those parts, while we sleep, raiseth in the brain an
imagination of some kindness shown. In sum, our dreams are the
reverse of our waking imaginations; the motion when we are awake
beginning at one end, and when we dream, at another. The most
difficult discerning of a man's dream from his waking thoughts
is, then, when by some accident we observe not that we have slept:
which is easy to happen to a man full of fearful thoughts; and
whose conscience is much troubled; and that sleepeth without
the circumstances of going to bed, or putting off his clothes,
as one that noddeth in a chair. For he that taketh pains, and
industriously lays himself to sleep, in case any uncouth and
exorbitant fancy come unto him, cannot easily think it other
than a dream. We read of Marcus Brutus (one that had his life
given him by Julius Caesar, and was also his favorite, and notwithstanding
murdered him), how at Philippi, the night before he gave battle
to Augustus Caesar, he saw a fearful apparition, which is commonly
related by historians as a vision, but, considering the circumstances,
one may easily judge to have been but a short dream. For sitting
in his tent, pensive and troubled with the horror of his rash
act, it was not hard for him, slumbering in the cold, to dream
of that which most affrighted him; which fear, as by degrees
it made him wake, so also it must needs make the apparition by
degrees to vanish: and having no assurance that he slept, he
could have no cause to think it a dream, or anything but a vision.
And this is no very rare accident: for even they that be perfectly
awake, if they be timorous and superstitious, possessed with
fearful tales, and alone in the dark, are subject to the like
fancies, and believe they see spirits and dead men's ghosts walking
in churchyards; whereas it is either their fancy only, or else
the knavery of such persons as make use of such superstitious
fear to pass disguised in the night to places they would not
be known to haunt. From this ignorance of how to distinguish
dreams, and other strong fancies, from vision and sense, did
arise the greatest part of the religion of the Gentiles in time
past, that worshipped satyrs, fauns, nymphs, and the like; and
nowadays the opinion that rude people have of fairies, ghosts,
and goblins, and of the power of witches. For, as for witches,
I think not that their witchcraft is any real power, but yet
that they are justly punished for the false belief they have
that they can do such mischief, joined with their purpose to
do it if they can, their trade being nearer to a new religion
than to a craft or science. And for fairies, and walking ghosts,
the opinion of them has, I think, been on purpose either taught,
or not confuted, to keep in credit the use of exorcism, of crosses,
of holy water, and other such inventions of ghostly men. Nevertheless,
there is no doubt but God can make unnatural apparitions: but
that He does it so often as men need to fear such things more
than they fear the stay, or change, of the course of Nature,
which he also can stay, and change, is no point of Christian
faith. But evil men, under pretext that God can do anything,
are so bold as to say anything when it serves their turn, though
they think it untrue; it is the part of a wise man to believe
them no further than right reason makes that which they say appear
credible. If this superstitious fear of spirits were taken away,
and with it prognostics from dreams, false prophecies, and many
other things depending thereon, by which crafty ambitious persons
abuse the simple people, men would be would be much more fitted
than they are for civil obedience. And this ought to be the work
of the schools, but they rather nourish such doctrine. For (not
knowing what imagination, or the senses are) what they receive,
they teach: some saying that imaginations rise of themselves,
and have no cause; others that they rise most commonly from the
will; and that good thoughts are blown (inspired) into a man
by God, and evil thoughts, by the Devil; or that good thoughts
are poured (infused) into a man by God, and evil ones by the
Devil. Some say the senses receive the species of things, and
deliver them to the common sense; and the common sense delivers
them over to the fancy, and the fancy to the memory, and the
memory to the judgement, like handing of things from one to another,
with many words making nothing understood. 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 the rating of
his master; and so will many other beasts. That understanding
which is peculiar to man is the understanding not only his will,
but his conceptions and thoughts, by the sequel and contexture
of the names of things into affirmations, negations, and other
forms of speech: and of this kind of understanding I shall speak
hereafter. CHAPTER III OF THE CONSEQUENCE OR TRAIN OF IMAGINATIONS
BY CONSEQUENCE, or train of thoughts, I understand that succession
of one thought to another which is called, to distinguish it
from discourse in words, mental discourse. When a man thinketh
on anything whatsoever, his next thought after is not altogether
so casual as it seems to be. Not every thought to every thought
succeeds indifferently. But as we have no imagination, whereof
we have not formerly had sense, in whole or in parts; so we have
no transition from one imagination to another, whereof we never
had the like before in our senses. The reason whereof is this.
All fancies are motions within us, relics of those made in the
sense; and those motions that immediately succeeded one another
in the sense continue also together after sense: in so much 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 plain 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
anything, 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. This 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 anything; though even
then their thoughts are as busy as at other times, but without
harmony; as the sound which a lute out of tune would yield to
any man; or in tune, to one that could not play. And yet in this
wild ranging of the mind, a man may oft-times perceive the way
of it, and the dependence of one thought upon another. For in
a discourse of our present civil war, what could seem more impertinent
than to ask, as one did, what was the value of a Roman penny?
Yet the coherence to me was manifest enough. For the thought
of the war introduced the thought of the delivering up the King
to his enemies; the thought of that brought in the thought of
the delivering up of Christ; and that again the thought of the
30 pence, which was the price of that treason: and thence easily
followed that malicious question; and all this in a moment of
time, for thought is quick. The second 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 that
which we aim at; and from the thought of that, the thought of
means to that mean; and so continually, till we come to some
beginning within our own power. And because the end, by the greatness
of the impression, comes often to mind, in case our thoughts
begin to wander they are quickly again reduced into the way:
which, observed by one of the seven wise men, made him give men
this precept, which is now worn out: respice finem; that is to
say, in all your actions, look often upon what you would have,
as the thing that directs all your thoughts in the way to attain
it. The train of regulated thoughts is of two kinds: one, when
of an effect imagined we seek the causes or means that produce
it; and this is common to man and beast. The other is, when imagining
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 hunting out of the causes
of some effect, present or past; or of the effects of some present
or past cause. Sometimes a man seeks what he hath lost; and from
that place, and time, wherein he misses it, his mind runs back,
from place to place, and time to time, to find where and when
he had it; that is to say, to find some certain and limited time
and place in which to begin a method of seeking. Again, from
thence, his thoughts run over the same places and times to find
what action or other occasion might make him lose it. This we
call remembrance, or calling to mind: the Latins call it reminiscentia,
as it were a re-conning of our former actions. Sometimes a man
knows a place determinate, within the compass whereof he is to
seek; and then his thoughts run over all the parts thereof in
the same manner as one would sweep a room to find a jewel; or
as a spaniel ranges the field till he find a scent; or as a man
should run over the alphabet to start a rhyme. 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. A
sign is the event antecedent of the consequent; and contrarily,
the consequent of the antecedent, when the like consequences
have been observed before: and the oftener they have been observed,
the less uncertain is the sign. And therefore he that has most
experience in any kind of business has most signs whereby to
guess at the future time, and consequently is the most prudent:
and so much more prudent than he that is new in that kind of
business, as not to be equalled by any advantage of natural and
extemporary wit, though perhaps many young men think the contrary.
Nevertheless, it is not prudence that distinguisheth man from
beast. There be beasts that at a year old observe more and pursue
that which is for their good more prudently than a child can
do at ten. As prudence is a presumption of the future, contracted
from the experience of time past: so there is a presumption of
things past taken from other things, not future, but past also.
For he that hath seen by what courses and degrees a flourishing
state hath first come into civil war, and then to ruin; upon
the sight of the ruins of any other state will guess the like
war and the like courses have been there also. But this conjecture
has the same uncertainty almost with the conjecture of the future,
both being grounded only upon experience. 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. Whatsoever we imagine is
finite. Therefore there is no idea or conception of anything
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 anything 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 unconceivable), but that we may honour
Him. Also because whatsoever, as I said before, we conceive has
been perceived first by sense, either all at once, or by parts,
a man can have no thought representing anything not subject to
sense. No man therefore can conceive anything, but he must conceive
it in some place; and endued with some determinate magnitude;
and which may be divided into parts; nor that anything is all
in this place, and all in another place at the same time; nor
that two or more things can be in one and the same place at once:
for none of these things ever have or can be incident to sense,
but are absurd speeches, taken upon credit, without any signification
at all, from deceived philosophers and deceived, or deceiving,
Schoolmen. CHAPTER IV OF SPEECH
THE INVENTION of printing, though ingenious, compared with
the invention of letters is no great matter. But who was the
first that found the use of letters is not known. He that first
brought them into Greece, men say, was Cadmus, the son of Agenor,
King of Phoenicia. A profitable invention for continuing the
memory of time past, and the conjunction of mankind dispersed
into so many and distant regions of the earth; and withal difficult,
as proceeding from a watchful observation of the diverse motions
of the tongue, palate, lips, and other organs of speech; whereby
to make as many differences of characters to remember them. But
the most noble and profitable invention of all other was that
of speech, consisting of names or appellations, and their connexion;
whereby men register their thoughts, recall them when they are
past, and also declare them one to another for mutual utility
and conversation; without which there had been amongst men neither
Commonwealth, nor society, nor contract, nor peace, no more than
amongst lions, bears, and wolves. The first author of speech
was God himself, that instructed Adam how to name such creatures
as He presented to his sight; for the Scripture goeth no further
in this matter. But this was sufficient to direct him to add
more names, as the experience and use of the creatures should
give him occasion; and to join them in such manner by degrees
as to make himself understood; and so by succession of time,
so much language might be gotten as he had found use for, though
not so copious as an orator or philosopher has need of. For I
do not find anything 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. But all
this language gotten, and augmented by Adam and his posterity,
was again lost at the tower of Babel, when by the hand of God
every man was stricken for his rebellion with an oblivion of
his former language. And being hereby forced to disperse themselves
into several parts of the world, it must needs be that the diversity
of tongues that now is, proceeded by degrees from them in such
manner as need, the mother of all inventions, taught them, and
in tract of time grew everywhere more copious. The general use
of speech is to transfer our mental discourse into verbal, or
the train of our thoughts into a train of words, and that for
two commodities; whereof one is the registering of the consequences
of our thoughts, which being apt to slip out of our memory and
put us to a new labour, may again be recalled by such words as
they were marked by. So that the first use of names is to serve
for marks or notes of remembrance. Another is when many use the
same words to signify, by their connexion and order one to another,
what they conceive or think of each matter; and also what they
desire, fear, or have any other passion for. And for this use
they are called signs. Special uses of speech are these: first,
to register what by cogitation we find to be the cause of anything,
present or past; and what we find things present or past may
produce, or effect; which, in sum, is acquiring of arts. Secondly,
to show to others that knowledge which we have attained; which
is to counsel and teach one another. Thirdly, to make known to
others our wills and purposes that we may have the mutual help
of one another. Fourthly, to please and delight ourselves, and
others, by playing with our words, for pleasure or ornament,
innocently. To these uses, there are also four correspondent
abuses. First, when men register their thoughts wrong by the
inconstancy of the signification of their words; by which they
register for their conceptions that which they never conceived,
and so deceive themselves. Secondly, when they use words metaphorically;
that is, in other sense than that they are ordained for, and
thereby deceive others. Thirdly, when by words they declare that
to be their will which is not. Fourthly, when they use them to
grieve one another: for seeing nature hath armed living creatures,
some with teeth, some with horns, and some with hands, to grieve
an enemy, it is but an abuse of speech to grieve him with the
tongue, unless it be one whom we are obliged to govern; and then
it is not to grieve, but to correct and amend. 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; as man, horse, tree; every of which, though but
one name, is nevertheless the name of diverse particular things;
in respect of all which together, it is called a 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. And
of names universal, some are of more and some of less extent,
the larger comprehending the less large; and some again of equal
extent, comprehending each other reciprocally. As for example,
the name body is of larger signification than the word man, and
comprehendeth it; and the names man and rational are of equal
extent, comprehending mutually one another. But here we must
take notice that by a name is not always understood, as in grammar,
one only word, but sometimes by circumlocution many words together.
For all these words, He that in his actions observeth the laws
of his country, make but one name, equivalent to this one word,
just. By this imposition of names, some of larger, some of stricter
signification, we turn the reckoning of the consequences of things
imagined in the mind into a reckoning of the consequences of
appellations. For example, a man that hath no use of speech at
all, (such as is born and remains perfectly deaf and dumb), if
he set before his eyes a triangle, and by it two right angles
(such as are the corners of a square figure), he may by meditation
compare and find that the three angles of that triangle are equal
to those two right angles that stand by it. But if another triangle
be shown him different in shape from the former, he cannot know
without a new labour whether the three angles of that also be
equal to the same. But he that hath the use of words, when he
observes that such equality was consequent, not to the length
of the sides, nor to any other particular thing in his triangle;
but only to this, that the sides were straight, and the angles
three, and that that was all, for which he named it a triangle;
will boldly conclude universally that such equality of angles
is in all triangles whatsoever, and register his invention in
these general terms: Every triangle hath its three angles equal
to two right angles. And thus the consequence found in one particular
comes to be registered and remembered as a universal rule; and
discharges our mental reckoning of time and place, and delivers
us from all labour of the mind, saving the first; and makes that
which was found true here, and now, to be true in all times and
places. But the use of words in registering our thoughts is in
nothing so evident as in numbering. A natural fool that could
never learn by heart the order of numeral words, as one, two,
and three, may observe every stroke of the clock, and nod to
it, or say one, one, one, but can never know what hour it strikes.
And it seems there was a time when those names of number were
not in use; and men were fain to apply their fingers of one or
both hands to those things they desired to keep account of; and
that thence it proceeded that now our numeral words are but ten,
in any nation, and in some but five, and then they begin again.
And he that can tell ten, if he recite them out of order, will
lose himself, and not know when he has done: much less will he
be able to add, and subtract, and perform all other operations
of arithmetic. So that without words there is no possibility
of reckoning of numbers; much less of magnitudes, of swiftness,
of force, and other things, the reckonings whereof are necessary
to the being or well-being of mankind. When two names are joined
together into a consequence, or affirmation, as thus, A man is
a living creature; or thus, If he be a man, he is a living creature;
if the latter name living creature signify all that the former
name man signifieth, then the affirmation, or consequence, is
true; 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; the
more he struggles, the more belimed. And therefore in geometry
(which is the only science that it hath pleased God hitherto
to bestow on mankind), men begin at settling the significations
of their words; which settling of significations, they call definitions,
and place them in the beginning of their reckoning. By this it
appears how necessary it is for any man that aspires to true
knowledge to examine the definitions of former authors; and either
to correct them, where they are negligently set down, or to make
them himself. For the errors of definitions multiply themselves,
according as the reckoning proceeds, and lead men into absurdities,
which at last they see, but cannot avoid, without reckoning anew
from the beginning; in which lies the foundation of their errors.
From whence it happens that they which trust to books do as they
that cast up many little sums into a greater, without considering
whether those little sums were rightly cast up or not; and at
last finding the error visible, and not mistrusting their first
grounds, know not which way to clear themselves, spend time in
fluttering over their books; as birds that entering by the chimney,
and finding themselves enclosed in a chamber, flutter at the
false light of a glass window, for want of wit to consider which
way they came in. So that in the right definition of names lies
the first use of speech; which is the acquisition of science:
and in wrong, or no definitions, lies the first abuse; from which
proceed all false and senseless tenets; which make those men
that take their instruction from the authority of books, and
not from their own meditation, to be as much below the condition
of ignorant men as men endued with true science are above it.
For between true science and erroneous doctrines, ignorance is
in the middle. Natural sense and imagination are not subject
to absurdity. Nature itself cannot err: and as men abound in
copiousness of language; so they become more wise, or more mad,
than ordinary. Nor is it possible without letters for any man
to become either excellently wise or (unless his memory be hurt
by disease, or ill constitution of organs) excellently foolish.
For words are wise men's counters; they do but reckon by them:
but they are the money of fools, that value them by the authority
of an Aristotle, a Cicero, or a Thomas, or any other doctor whatsoever,
if but a man. Subject to names is whatsoever can enter into or
be considered in an account, and be added one 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 account
call items, they called nomina; that is, names: and thence it
seems to proceed that they extended the word ratio to the faculty
of reckoning in all other things. The Greeks have but one word,
logos, for both speech and reason; not that they thought there
was no speech without reason, but no reasoning without speech;
and the act of reasoning they called syllogism; which signifieth
summing up of the consequences of one saying to another. And
because the same things may enter into account for diverse accidents,
their names are (to show that diversity) diversely wrested and
diversified. This diversity of names may be reduced to four general
heads. First, a thing may enter into account for matter, or body;
as living, sensible, rational, hot, cold, moved, quiet; with
all which names the word matter, or body, is understood; all
such being names of matter. Secondly, it may enter into account,
or be considered, for some accident or quality which we conceive
to be in it; as for being moved, for being so long, for being
hot, etc.; and then, of the name of the thing itself, by a little
change or wresting, we make a name for that accident which we
consider; and for living put into the account life; for moved,
motion; for hot, heat; for long, length, and the like: and all
such names are the names of the accidents and properties by which
one matter and body is distinguished from another. These are
called names abstract, because severed, not from matter, but
from the account of matter. Thirdly, we bring into account the
properties of our own bodies, whereby we make such distinction:
as when anything is seen by us, we reckon not the thing itself,
but the sight, the colour, the idea of it in the fancy; and when
anything is heard, we reckon it not, but the hearing or sound
only, which is our fancy or conception of it by the ear: and
such are names of fancies. Fourthly, we bring into account, consider,
and give names, to names themselves, and to speeches: for, general,
universal, special, equivocal, are names of names. And affirmation,
interrogation, commandment, narration, syllogism, sermon, oration,
and many other such are names of speeches. And this is all the
variety of names positive; which are put to mark somewhat which
is in nature, or may be feigned by the mind of man, as bodies
that are, or may be conceived to be; or of bodies, the properties
that are, or may be feigned to be; or words and speech. There
be also other names, called negative; which are notes to signify
that a word is not the name of the thing in question; as these
words: nothing, no man, infinite, indocible, three want four,
and the like; which are nevertheless of use in reckoning, or
in correcting of reckoning, and call to mind our past cogitations,
though they be not names of anything; because they make us refuse
to admit of names not rightly used. All other names are but insignificant
sounds; and those of two sorts. One, when they are new, and yet
their meaning not explained by definition; whereof there have
been abundance coined by Schoolmen and puzzled philosophers.
Another, when men make a name of two names, whose significations
are contradictory and inconsistent; as this name, an incorporeal
body, or, which is all one, an incorporeal substance, and a great
number more. For whensoever any affirmation is false, the two
names of which it is composed, put together and made one, signify
nothing at all. For example, if it be a false affirmation to
say a quadrangle is round, the word round quadrangle signifies
nothing, but is a mere sound. So likewise if it be false to say
that virtue can be poured, or blown up and down, the words inpoured
virtue, inblown virtue, are as absurd and insignificant as a
round quadrangle. And therefore you shall hardly meet with a
senseless and insignificant word that is not made up of some
Latin or Greek names. Frenchman seldom hears our Saviour called
by the name of Parole, but by the name of Verbe often; yet Verbe
and Parole differ no more but that one is Latin, the other French.
When a man, upon the hearing of any speech, hath those thoughts
which the words of that speech, and their connexion, were ordained
and constituted to signify, then he is said to understand it:
understanding being nothing else but conception caused by speech.
And therefore if speech be peculiar to man, as for ought I know
it is, then is understanding peculiar to him also. And therefore
of absurd and false affirmations, in case they be universal,
there can be no understanding; though many think they understand
then, when they do but repeat the words softly, or con them in
their mind. What kinds of speeches signify the appetites, aversions,
and passions of man's mind, and of their use and abuse, I shall
speak when I have spoken of the passions. The names of such things
as affect us, that is, which please and displease us, because
all men be not alike affected with the same thing, nor the same
man at all times, are in the common discourses of men of inconstant
signification. For seeing all names are imposed to signify our
conceptions, and all our affections are but conceptions; when
we conceive the same things differently, we can hardly avoid
different naming of them. For though the nature of that we conceive
be the same; yet the diversity of our reception of it, in respect
of different constitutions of body and prejudices of opinion,
gives everything a tincture of our different passions. And therefore
in reasoning, a man must take heed of words; which, besides the
signification of what we imagine of their nature, have a signification
also of the nature, disposition, and interest of the speaker;
such as are the names of virtues and vices: for one man calleth
wisdom what another calleth fear; and one cruelty what another
justice; one prodigality what another magnanimity; and one gravity
what another stupidity, etc. And therefore such names can never
be true grounds of any ratiocination. No more can metaphors and
tropes of speech: but these are less dangerous because they profess
their inconstancy, which the other do not. CHAPTER V OF REASON
AND SCIENCE
WHEN man reasoneth, he does nothing else but conceive a sum
total, from addition of parcels; or conceive a remainder, from
subtraction of one sum from another: which, if it be done by
words, is conceiving of the consequence of the names of all the
parts, to the name of the whole; or from the names of the whole
and one part, to the name of the other part. And though in some
things, as in numbers, besides adding and subtracting, men name
other operations, as multiplying and dividing; yet they are the
same: for multiplication is but adding together of things equal;
and division, but subtracting of one thing, as often as we can.
These operations are not incident to numbers only, but to all
manner of things that can be added together, and taken one out
of another. For as arithmeticians teach to add and subtract in
numbers, so the geometricians teach the same in lines, figures
(solid and superficial), angles, proportions, times, degrees
of swiftness, force, power, and the like; the logicians teach
the same in consequences of words, adding together two names
to make an affirmation, and two affirmations to make a syllogism,
and many syllogisms to make a demonstration; and from the sum,
or conclusion of a syllogism, they subtract one proposition to
find the other. Writers of politics add together pactions to
find men's duties; and lawyers, laws and facts to find what is
right and wrong in the actions of private men. In sum, in what
matter soever there is place for addition and subtraction, there
also is place for reason; and where these have no place, there
reason has nothing at all to do. Out of all which we may define
(that is to say determine) what that is which is meant by this
word reason when we reckon it amongst the faculties of the mind.
For reason, in this sense, is nothing but reckoning (that is,
adding and subtracting) of the consequences of general names
agreed upon for the marking and signifying of our thoughts; I
say marking them, when we reckon by ourselves; and signifying,
when we demonstrate or approve our reckonings to other men. 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 one number of men, makes the certainty; no
more than an account is therefore well cast up because a great
many men have unanimously approved it. And therefore, as when
there is a controversy in an account, the parties must by their
own accord set up for right reason the reason of some arbitrator,
or judge, to whose sentence they will both stand, or their controversy
must either come to blows, or be undecided, for want of a right
reason constituted by Nature; so is it also in all debates of
what kind soever: and when men that think themselves wiser than
all others clamour and demand right reason for judge, yet seek
no more but that things should be determined by no other men's
reason but their own, it is as intolerable in the society of
men, as it is in play after trump is turned to use for trump
on every occasion that 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: bewraying their want of
right reason by the claim they lay to it. The use and end of
reason is not the finding of the sum and truth of one, or a few
consequences, remote from the first definitions and settled significations
of names; but to begin at these, and proceed from one consequence
to another. For there can be no certainty of the last conclusion
without a certainty of all those affirmations and negations on
which it was grounded and inferred. As when a master of a family,
in taking an account, casteth up the sums of all the bills of
expense into one sum; and not regarding how each bill is summed
up, by those that give them in account, nor what it is he pays
for, he advantages himself no more than if he allowed the account
in gross, trusting to every of the accountant's skill and honesty:
so also in reasoning of all other things, he that takes up conclusions
on the trust of authors, and doth not fetch them from the first
items in every reckoning (which are the significations of names
settled by definitions), loses his labour, and does not know
anything, but only believeth. 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 follow follows not, or that which he thought
likely to have preceded it hath not preceded it, this is called
error; to which even the most prudent men are subject. But when
we reason in words of general signification, and fall upon a
general inference which is false; though it be commonly called
error, it is indeed an absurdity, or senseless speech. For error
is but a deception, in presuming that somewhat is past, or to
come; of which, though it were not past, or not to come, yet
there was no impossibility discoverable. But when we make a general
assertion, unless it be a true one, the possibility of it is
inconceivable. And words whereby we conceive nothing but the
sound are those we call absurd, insignificant, and nonsense.
And therefore if a man should talk to me of a round quadrangle;
or accidents of bread in cheese; or immaterial substances; or
of a free subject; a free will; or any free but free from being
hindered by opposition; I should not say he were in an error,
but that his words were without meaning; that is to say, absurd.
I have said before, in the second chapter, that a man did excel
all other animals in this faculty, that when he conceived anything
whatsoever, he was apt to enquire the consequences of it, and
what effects he could do with it. And now I add this other degree
of the same excellence, that he can by words reduce the consequences
he finds to general rules, called theorems, or aphorisms; that
is, he can reason, or reckon, not only in number, but in all
other things whereof one may be added unto or subtracted from
another. But this privilege is allayed by another; and that is
by the privilege of absurdity, to which no living creature is
subject, but men only. And of men, those are of all most subject
to it that profess philosophy. For it is most true that Cicero
saith of them somewhere; that there can be nothing so absurd
but may be found in the books of philosophers. And the reason
is manifest. For there is not one of them that begins his ratiocination
from the definitions or explications of the names they are to
use; which is a method that hath been used only in geometry,
whose conclusions have thereby been made indisputable. 1. The
first cause of absurd conclusions I ascribe to the want of method;
in that they begin not their ratiocination from definitions;
that is, from settled significations of their words: as if they
could cast account without knowing the value of the numeral words,
one, two, and three. And whereas all bodies enter into account
upon diverse considerations, which I have mentioned in the precedent
chapter, these considerations being diversely named, diverse
absurdities proceed from the confusion and unfit connexion of
their names into assertions. And therefore, 2. The second cause
of absurd assertions, I ascribe to the giving of names of bodies
to accidents; or of accidents to bodies; as they do that say,
faith is infused, or inspired; when nothing can be poured, or
breathed into anything, but body; and that extension is body;
that phantasms are spirits, etc. 3. The third I ascribe to the
giving of the names of the accidents of bodies without us to
the accidents of our own bodies; as they do that say, the colour
is in the body; the sound is in the air, etc. 4. The fourth,
to the giving of the names of bodies to names, or speeches; as
they do that say that there be things universal; that a living
creature is genus, or a general thing, etc. 5. The fifth, to
the giving of the names of accidents to names and speeches; as
they do that say, the nature of a thing is its definition; a
man's command is his will; and the like. 6. The sixth, to the
use of metaphors, tropes, and other rhetorical figures, instead
of words proper. For though it be lawful to say, for example,
in common speech, the way goeth, or leadeth hither, or thither;
the proverb says this or that (whereas ways cannot go, nor proverbs
speak); yet in reckoning, and seeking of truth, such speeches
are not to be admitted. 7. The seventh, to names that signify
nothing, but are taken up and learned by rote from the Schools,
as hypostatical, transubstantiate, consubstantiate, eternal-now,
and the like canting of Schoolmen. To him that can avoid these
things, it is not easy to fall into any absurdity, unless it
be by the length of an account; wherein he may perhaps forget
what went before. For all men by nature reason alike, and well,
when they have good principles. For who is so stupid as both
to mistake in geometry, and also to persist in it, when another
detects his error to him? By this it appears that reason is not,
as sense and memory, born with us; nor gotten by experience only,
as prudence is; but attained by industry: first in apt imposing
of names; and secondly by getting a good and orderly method in
proceeding from the elements, which are names, to assertions
made by connexion of one of them to another; and so to syllogisms,
which are the connexions of one assertion to another, till we
come to a knowledge of all the consequences of names appertaining
to the subject in hand; and that is it, men call science. And
whereas sense and memory are but knowledge of fact, which is
a thing past and irrevocable, science is the knowledge of consequences,
and dependence of one fact upon another; by which, out of that
we can presently do, we know how to do something else when we
will, or the like, another time: because when we see how anything
comes about, upon what causes, and by what manner; when the like
causes come into our power, we see how to make it produce the
like effects. Children therefore are not endued with reason at
all, till they have attained the use of speech, but are called
reasonable creatures for the possibility apparent of having the
use of reason in time to come. And the most part of men, though
they have the use of reasoning a little way, as in numbering
to some degree; yet it serves them to little use in common life,
in which they govern themselves, some better, some worse, according
to their differences of experience, quickness of memory, and
inclinations to several ends; but specially according to good
or evil fortune, and the errors of one another. For as for science,
or certain rules of their actions, they are so far from it that
they know not what it is. Geometry they have thought conjuring:
but for other sciences, they who have not been taught the beginnings,
and some progress in them, that they may see how they be acquired
and generated, are in this point like children that, having no
thought of generation, are made believe by the women that their
brothers and sisters are not born, but found in the garden. But
yet they that have no science are in better and nobler condition
with their natural prudence than men that, by misreasoning, or
by trusting them that reason wrong, fall upon false and absurd
general rules. For ignorance of causes, and of rules, does not
set men so far out of their way as relying on false rules, and
taking for causes of what they aspire to, those that are not
so, but rather causes of the contrary. To conclude, the light
of humane minds is perspicuous words, but by exact definitions
first snuffed, and purged from ambiguity; reason is the pace;
increase of science, the way; and the benefit of mankind, the
end. And, on the contrary, metaphors, and senseless and ambiguous
words are like ignes fatui; and reasoning upon them is wandering
amongst innumerable absurdities; and their end, contention and
sedition, or contempt. As much experience is prudence, so is
much science sapience. For though we usually have one name of
wisdom for them both; yet the Latins did always distinguish between
prudentia and sapientia; ascribing the former to experience,
the latter to science. But to make their difference appear more
clearly, let us suppose one man endued with an excellent natural
use and dexterity in handling his arms; and another to have added
to that dexterity an acquired science of where he can offend,
or be offended by his adversary, in every possible posture or
guard: the ability of the former would be to the ability of the
latter, as prudence to sapience; both useful, but the latter
infallible. But they that, trusting only to the authority of
books, follow the blind blindly, are like him that, trusting
to the false rules of a master of fence, ventures presumptuously
upon an adversary that either kills or disgraces him. The signs
of science are some certain and infallible; some, uncertain.
Certain, when he that pretendeth the science of anything can
teach the same; that is to say, demonstrate the truth thereof
perspicuously to another: uncertain, when only some particular
events answer to his pretence, and upon many occasions prove
so as he says they must. Signs of prudence are all uncertain;
because to observe by experience, and remember all circumstances
that may alter the success, is impossible. But in any business,
whereof a man has not infallible science to proceed by, to forsake
his own natural judgment, and be guided by general sentences
read in authors, and subject to many exceptions, is a sign of
folly, and generally scorned by the name of pedantry. And even
of those men themselves that in councils of the Commonwealth
love to show their reading of politics and history, very few
do it in their domestic affairs where their particular interest
is concerned, having prudence enough for their private affairs;
but in public they study more the reputation of their own wit
than the success of another's business. CHAPTER VI OF THE INTERIOR
BEGINNINGS OF VOLUNTARY MOTIONS, COMMONLY CALLED THE PASSIONS;
AND THE SPEECHES BY WHICH THEY ARE EXPRESSED
THERE be in animals two sorts of motions peculiar to them:
One called vital, begun in generation, and continued without
interruption through their whole life; such as are the course
of the blood, the pulse, the breathing, the concoction, nutrition,
excretion, etc.; to which motions there needs no help of imagination:
the other is animal motion, otherwise called voluntary motion;
as to go, to speak, to move any of our limbs, in such manner
as is first fancied in our minds. That sense is motion in the
organs and interior parts of man's body, caused by the action
of the things we see, hear, etc., and that fancy is but the relics
of the same motion, remaining after sense, has been already said
in the first and second chapters. And because going, speaking,
and the like voluntary motions depend always upon a precedent
thought of whither, which way, and what, it is evident that the
imagination is the first internal beginning of all voluntary
motion. And although unstudied men do not conceive any motion
at all to be there, where the thing moved is invisible, or the
space it is moved in is, for the shortness of it, insensible;
yet that doth not hinder but that such motions are. For let a
space be never so little, that which is moved over a greater
space, whereof that little one is part, must first be moved over
that. These small beginnings of motion within the body of man,
before they appear in walking, speaking, striking, and other
visible actions, are commonly called endeavour. This endeavour,
when it is toward something which causes it, is called appetite,
or desire, the latter being the general name, and the other oftentimes
restrained to signify the desire of food, namely hunger and thirst.
And when the endeavour is from ward something, it is generally
called aversion. These words appetite and aversion we have from
the Latins; and they both of them signify the motions, one of
approaching, the other of retiring. So also do the Greek words
for the same, which are orme and aphorme. For Nature itself does
often press upon men those truths which afterwards, when they
look for somewhat beyond Nature, they stumble at. For the Schools
find in mere appetite to go, or move, no actual motion at all;
but because some motion they must acknowledge, they call it metaphorical
motion, which is but an absurd speech; for though words may be
called metaphorical, bodies and motions cannot. That which men
desire they are said to love, and to hate those things for which
they have aversion. So that desire and love are the same thing;
save that by desire, we signify the absence of the object; by
love, most commonly the presence of the same. So also by aversion,
we signify the absence; and by hate, the presence of the object.
Of appetites and aversions, some are born with men; as appetite
of food, appetite of excretion, and exoneration (which may also
and more properly be called aversions, from somewhat they feel
in their bodies), and some other appetites, not many. The rest,
which are appetites of particular things, proceed from experience
and trial of their effects upon themselves or other men. For
of things we know not at all, or believe not to be, we can have
no further desire than to taste and try. But aversion we have
for things, not only which we know have hurt us, but also that
we do not know whether they will hurt us, or not. Those things
which we neither desire nor hate, we are said to contemn: contempt
being nothing else but an immobility or contumacy of the heart
in resisting the action of certain things; and proceeding from
that the heart is already moved otherwise, by other more potent
objects, or from want of experience of them. And because the
constitution of a man's body is in continual mutation, it is
impossible that all the same things should always cause in him
the same appetites and aversions: much less can all men consent
in the desire of almost any one and the same object. But whatsoever
is the object of any man's appetite or desire, that is it which
he for his part calleth good; and the object of his hate and
aversion, evil; and of his contempt, vile and inconsiderable.
For these words of good, evil, and contemptible are ever used
with relation to the person that useth them: there being nothing
simply and absolutely so; nor any common rule of good and evil
to be taken from the nature of the objects themselves; but from
the person of the man, where there is no Commonwealth; or, in
a Commonwealth, from the person that representeth it; or from
an arbitrator or judge, whom men disagreeing shall by consent
set up and make his sentence the rule thereof. The Latin tongue
has two words whose significations approach to those of good
and evil, but are not precisely the same; and those are pulchrum
and turpe. Whereof the former signifies that which by some apparent
signs promiseth good; and the latter, that which promiseth evil.
But in our tongue we have not so general names to express them
by. But for pulchrum we say in some things, fair; in others,
beautiful, or handsome, or gallant, or honourable, or comely,
or amiable: and for turpe; foul, deformed, ugly, base, nauseous,
and the like, as the subject shall require; all which words,
in their proper places, signify nothing else but the mien, or
countenance, that promiseth good and evil. So that of good there
be three kinds: good in the promise, that is pulchrum; good in
effect, as the end desired, which is called jucundum, delightful;
and good as the means, which is called utile, profitable; and
as many of evil: for evil in promise is that they call turpe;
evil in effect and end is molestum, unpleasant, troublesome;
and evil in the means, inutile, unprofitable, hurtful. As in
sense that which is really within us is, as I have said before,
only motion, caused by the action of external objects but in
appearance; to the sight, light and colour; to the ear, sound;
to the nostril, odour, etc.: so, when the action of the same
object is continued from the eyes, ears, and other organs to
the heart, the real effect there is nothing but motion, or endeavour;
which consisteth in appetite or aversion to or from the object
moving. But the appearance or sense of that motion is that we
either call delight or trouble of mind. This motion, which is
called appetite, and for the appearance of it delight and pleasure,
seemeth to be a corroboration of vital motion, and a help thereunto;
and therefore such things as caused delight were not improperly
called jucunda (a juvando), from helping or fortifying; and the
contrary, molesta, offensive, from hindering and troubling the
motion vital. Pleasure therefore, or delight, is the appearance
or sense of good; and molestation or displeasure, the appearance
or sense of evil. And consequently all appetite, desire, and
love is accompanied with some delight more or less; and all hatred
and aversion with more or less displeasure and offence. Of pleasures,
or delights, some arise from the sense of an object present;
and those may be called pleasures of sense (the word sensual,
as it is used by those only that condemn them, having no place
till there be laws). Of this kind are all onerations and exonerations
of the body; as also all that is pleasant, in the sight, hearing,
smell, taste, or touch. Others arise from the expectation that
proceeds from foresight of the end or consequence of things,
whether those things in the sense please or displease: and these
are pleasures of the mind of him that draweth in those consequences,
and are generally called joy. In the like manner, displeasures
are some in the sense, and called pain; others, in the expectation
of consequences, and are called grief. These simple passions
called appetite, desire, love, aversion, hate, joy, and grief
have their names for diverse considerations diversified. At first,
when they one succeed another, they are diversely called from
the opinion men have of the likelihood of attaining what they
desire. Secondly, from the object loved or hated. Thirdly, from
the consideration of many of them together. Fourthly, from the
alteration or succession itself. For appetite with an opinion
of attaining is called hope. The same, without such opinion,
despair. Aversion, with opinion of hurt from the object, fear.
The same, with hope of avoiding that hurt by resistence, courage.
Sudden courage, anger. Constant hope, confidence of ourselves.
Constant despair, diffidence of ourselves. Anger for great hurt
done to another, when we conceive the same to be done by injury,
indignation. Desire of good to another, benevolence, good will,
charity. If to man generally, good nature. Desire of riches,
covetousness: a name used always in signification of blame, because
men contending for them are displeased with one another's attaining
them; though the desire in itself be to be blamed, or allowed,
according to the means by which those riches are sought. Desire
of office, or precedence, ambition: a name used also in the worse
sense, for the reason before mentioned. Desire of things that
conduce but a little to our ends, and fear of things that are
but of little hindrance, pusillanimity. Contempt of little helps,
and hindrances, magnanimity. Magnanimity in danger of death,
or wounds, valour, fortitude. Magnanimity in the use of riches,
liberality. Pusillanimity in the same, wretchedness, miserableness,
or parsimony, as it is liked, or disliked. Love of persons for
society, kindness. Love of persons for pleasing the sense only,
natural lust. Love of the same acquired from rumination, that
is, imagination of pleasure past, luxury. Love of one singularly,
with desire to be singularly beloved, the passion of love. The
same, with fear that the love is not mutual, jealousy. Desire
by doing hurt to another to make him condemn some fact of his
own, revengefulness. Desire to know why, and how, curiosity;
such as is in no living creature but man: so that man is distinguished,
not only by his reason, but also by this singular passion from
other animals; in whom the appetite of food, and other pleasures
of sense, by predominance, take away the care of knowing causes;
which is a lust of the mind, that by a perseverance of delight
in the continual and indefatigable generation of knowledge, exceedeth
the short vehemence of any carnal pleasure. Fear of power invisible,
feigned by the mind, or imagined from tales publicly allowed,
religion; not allowed, superstition. And when the power imagined
is truly such as we imagine, true religion. Fear without the
apprehension of why, or what, panic terror; called so from the
fables that make Pan the author of them; whereas in truth there
is always in him that so feareth, first, some apprehension of
the cause, though the rest run away by example; every one supposing
his fellow to know why. And therefore this passion happens to
none but in a throng, or multitude of people. Joy from apprehension
of novelty, admiration; proper to man, because it excites the
appetite of knowing the cause. Joy arising from imagination of
a man's own power and ability is that exultation of the mind
which is called glorying: which, if grounded upon the experience
of his own former actions, is the same with confidence: but if
grounded on the flattery of others, or only supposed by himself,
for delight in the consequences of it, is called vainglory: which
name is properly given; because a well-grounded confidence begetteth
attempt; whereas the supposing of power does not, and is therefore
rightly called vain. Grief, from opinion of want of power, is
called dejection of mind. The vainglory which consisteth in the
feigning or supposing of abilities in ourselves, which we know
are not, is most incident to young men, and nourished by the
histories or fictions of gallant persons; and is corrected oftentimes
by age and employment. Sudden glory is the passion which maketh
those grimaces called laughter; and is caused either by some
sudden act of their own that pleaseth them; or by the apprehension
of some deformed thing in another, by comparison whereof they
suddenly applaud themselves. And it is incident most to them
that are conscious of the fewest abilities in themselves; who
are forced to keep themselves in their own favour by observing
the imperfections of other men. And therefore much laughter at
the defects of others is a sign of pusillanimity. For of great
minds one of the proper works is to help and free others from
scorn, and compare themselves only with the most able. On the
contrary, sudden dejection is the passion that causeth weeping;
and is caused by such accidents as suddenly take away some vehement
hope, or some prop of their power: and they are most subject
to it that rely principally on helps external, such as are women
and children. Therefore, some weep for the loss of friends; others
for their unkindness; others for the sudden stop made to their
thoughts of revenge, by reconciliation. But in all cases, both
laughter and weeping are sudden motions, custom taking them both
away. For no man laughs at old jests, or weeps for an old calamity.
Grief for the discovery of some defect of ability is shame, or
the passion that discovereth itself in blushing, and consisteth
in the apprehension of something dishonourable; and in young
men is a sign of the love of good reputation, and commendable:
in old men it is a sign of the same; but because it comes too
late, not commendable. The contempt of good reputation is called
impudence. Grief for the calamity of another is pity; and ariseth
from the imagination that the like calamity may befall himself;
and therefore is called also compassion, and in the phrase of
this present time a fellow-feeling: and therefore for calamity
arriving from great wickedness, the best men have the least pity;
and for the same calamity, those have least pity that think themselves
least obnoxious to the same. Contempt, or little sense of the
calamity of others, is that which men call cruelty; proceeding
from security of their own fortune. For, that any man should
take pleasure in other men's great harms, without other end of
his own, I do not conceive it possible. Grief for the success
of a competitor in wealth, honour, or other good, if it be joined
with endeavour to enforce our own abilities to equal or exceed
him, is called emulation: but joined with endeavour to supplant
or hinder a competitor, envy. When in the mind of man appetites
and aversions, hopes and fears, concerning one and the same thing,
arise alternately; and diverse good and evil consequences of
the doing or omitting the thing propounded come successively
into our thoughts; so that sometimes we have an appetite to it,
sometimes an aversion from it; sometimes hope to be able to do
it, sometimes despair, or fear to attempt it; the whole sum of
desires, aversions, hopes and fears, continued till the thing
be either done, or thought impossible, is that we call deliberation.
Therefore of things past there is no deliberation, because manifestly
impossible to be changed; nor of things known to be impossible,
or thought so; because men know or think such deliberation vain.
But of things impossible, which we think possible, we may deliberate,
not knowing it is in vain. And it is called deliberation; because
it is a putting an end to the liberty we had of doing, or omitting,
according to our own appetite, or aversion. This alternate succession
of appetites, aversions, hopes and fears is no less in other
living creatures than in man; and therefore beasts also deliberate.
Every deliberation is then said to end when that whereof they
deliberate is either done or thought impossible; because till
then we retain the liberty of doing, or omitting, according to
our appetite, or aversion. In deliberation, the last appetite,
or aversion, immediately adhering to the action, or to the omission
thereof, is that we call the will; the act, not the faculty,
of willing. And beasts that have deliberation must necessarily
also have will. The definition of the will, given commonly by
the Schools, that it is a rational appetite, is not good. For
if it were, then could there be no voluntary act against reason.
For a voluntary act is that which proceedeth from the will, and
no other. But if instead of a rational appetite, we shall say
an appetite resulting from a precedent deliberation, then the
definition is the same that I have given here. Will, therefore,
is the last appetite in deliberating. And though we say in common
discourse, a man had a will once to do a thing, that nevertheless
he forbore to do; yet that is properly but an inclination, which
makes no action voluntary; because the action depends not of
it, but of the last inclination, or appetite. For if the intervenient
appetites make any action voluntary, then by the same reason
all intervenient aversions should make the same action involuntary;
and so one and the same action should be both voluntary and involuntary.
By this it is manifest that, not only actions that have their
beginning from covetousness, ambition, lust, or other appetites
to the thing propounded, but also those that have their beginning
from aversion, or fear of those consequences that follow the
omission, are voluntary actions. The forms of speech by which
the passions are expressed are partly the same and partly different
from those by which we express our thoughts. And first generally
all passions may be expressed indicatively; as, I love, I fear,
I joy, I deliberate, I will, I command: but some of them have
particular expressions by themselves, which nevertheless are
not affirmations, unless it be when they serve to make other
inferences besides that of the passion they proceed from. Deliberation
is expressed subjunctively; which is a speech proper to signify
suppositions, with their consequences; as, If this be done, then
this will follow; and differs not from the language of reasoning,
save that reasoning is in general words, but deliberation for
the most part is of particulars. The language of desire, and
aversion, is imperative; as, Do this, forbear that; which when
the party is obliged to do, or forbear, is command; otherwise
prayer; or else counsel. The language of vainglory, of indignation,
pity and revengefulness, optative: but of the desire to know,
there is a peculiar expression called interrogative; as, What
is it, when shall it, how is it done, and why so? Other language
of the passions I find none: for cursing, swearing, reviling,
and the like do not signify as speech, but as the actions of
a tongue accustomed. These forms of speech, I say, are expressions
or voluntary significations of our passions: but certain signs
they be not; because they may be used arbitrarily, whether they
that use them have such passions or not. The best signs of passions
present are either in the countenance, motions of the body, actions,
and ends, or aims, which we otherwise know the man to have. And
because in deliberation the appetites and aversions are raised
by foresight of the good and evil consequences, and sequels of
the action whereof we deliberate, the good or evil effect thereof
dependeth on the foresight of a long chain of consequences, of
which very seldom any man is able to see to the end. But for
so far as a man seeth, if the good in those consequences be greater
than the evil, the whole chain is that which writers call apparent
or seeming good. And contrarily, when the evil exceedeth the
good, the whole is apparent or seeming evil: so that he who hath
by experience, or reason, the greatest and surest prospect of
consequences, deliberates best himself; and is able, when he
will, to give the best counsel unto others. Continual success
in obtaining those things which a man from time to time desireth,
that is to say, continual prospering, is that men call felicity;
I mean the felicity of this life. For there is no such thing
as perpetual tranquillity of mind, while we live here; because
life itself is but motion, and can never be without desire, nor
without fear, no more than without sense. What kind of felicity
God hath ordained to them that devoutly honour him, a man shall
no sooner know than enjoy; being joys that now are as incomprehensible
as the word of Schoolmen, beatifical vision, is unintelligible.
The form of speech whereby men signify their opinion of the goodness
of anything is praise. That whereby they signify the power and
greatness of anything is magnifying. And that whereby they signify
the opinion they have of a man's felicity is by the Greeks called
makarismos, for which we have no name in our tongue. And thus
much is sufficient for the present purpose to have been said
of the passions. CHAPTER VII OF THE ENDS OR RESOLUTIONS OF DISCOURSE
OF ALL discourse governed by desire of knowledge, there is
at last an end, either by attaining or by giving over. And in
the chain of discourse, wheresoever it be interrupted, there
is an end for that time. If the discourse be merely mental, it
consisteth of thoughts that the thing will be, and will not be;
or that it has been, and has not been, alternately. So that wheresoever
you break off the chain of a man's discourse, you leave him in
a presumption of it will be, or, it will not be; or it has been,
or, has not been. All which is opinion. And that which is alternate
appetite, in deliberating concerning good and evil, the same
is alternate opinion in the enquiry of the truth of past and
future. And as the last appetite in deliberation is called the
will, so the last opinion in search of the truth of past and
future is called the judgement, or resolute and final sentence
of him that discourseth. And as the whole chain of appetites
alternate in the question of good or bad is called deliberation;
so the whole chain of opinions alternate in the question of true
or false is called doubt. No discourse whatsoever can end in
absolute knowledge of fact, past or to come. For, as for the
knowledge of fact, it is originally sense, and ever after memory.
And for the knowledge of consequence, which I have said before
is called science, it is not absolute, but conditional. No man
can know by discourse that this, or that, is, has been, or will
be; which is to know absolutely: but only that if this be, that
is; if this has been, that has been; if this shall be, that shall
be; which is to know conditionally: and that not the consequence
of one thing to another, but of one name of a thing to another
name of the same thing. And therefore, when the discourse is
put into speech, and begins with the definitions of words, and
proceeds by connexion of the same into general affirmations,
and of these again into syllogisms, the end or last sum is called
the conclusion; and the thought of the mind by it signified is
that conditional knowledge, or knowledge of the consequence of
words, which is commonly called science. But if the first ground
of such discourse be not definitions, or if the definitions be
not rightly joined together into syllogisms, then the end or
conclusion is again opinion, namely of the truth of somewhat
said, though sometimes in absurd and senseless words, without
possibility of being understood. When two or more men know of
one and the same fact, they are said to be conscious of it one
to another; which is as much as to know it together. And because
such are fittest witnesses of the facts of one another, or of
a third, it was and ever will be reputed a very evil act for
any man to speak against his conscience; or to corrupt or force
another so to do: insomuch that the plea of conscience has been
always hearkened unto very diligently in all times. Afterwards,
men made use of the same word metaphorically for the knowledge
of their own secret facts and secret thoughts; and therefore
it is rhetorically said that the conscience is a thousand witnesses.
And last of all, men, vehemently in love with their own new opinions,
though never so absurd, and obstinately bent to maintain them,
gave those their opinions also that reverenced name of conscience,
as if they would have it seem unlawful to change or speak against
them; and so pretend to know they are true, when they know at
most but that they think so. When a man's discourse beginneth
not at definitions, it beginneth either at some other contemplation
of his own, and then it is still called opinion, or it beginneth
at some saying of another, of whose ability to know the truth,
and of whose honesty in not deceiving, he doubteth not; and then
the discourse is not so much concerning the thing, as the person;
and the resolution is called belief, and faith: faith, in the
man; belief, both of the man, and of the truth of what he says.
So that in belief are two opinions; one of the saying of the
man, the other of his virtue. To have faith in, or trust to,
or believe a man, signify the same thing; namely, an opinion
of the veracity of the man: but to believe what is said signifieth
only an opinion of the truth of the saying. But we are to observe
that this phrase, I believe in; as also the Latin, credo in;
and the Greek, piseno eis, are never used but in the writings
of divines. Instead of them, in other writings are put: I believe
him; I trust him; I have faith in him; I rely on him; and in
Latin, credo illi; fido illi; and in Greek, piseno anto; and
that this singularity of the ecclesiastic use of the word hath
raised many disputes about the right object of the Christian
faith. But by believing in, as it is in the Creed, is meant,
not trust in the person, but confession and acknowledgement of
the doctrine. For not only Christians, but all manner of men
do so believe in God as to hold all for truth they hear Him say,
whether they understand it or not, which is all the faith and
trust can possibly be had in any person whatsoever; but they
do not all believe the doctrine of the Creed. From whence we
may infer that when we believe any saying, whatsoever it be,
to be true, from arguments taken, not from the thing itself,
or from the principles of natural reason, but from the authority
and good opinion we have of him that hath said it; then is the
speaker, or person we believe in, or trust in, and whose word
we take, the object of our faith; and the honour done in believing
is done to him only. And consequently, when we believe that the
Scriptures are the word of God, having no immediate revelation
from God Himself, our belief, faith, and trust is in the Church;
whose word we take, and acquiesce therein. And they that believe
that which a prophet relates unto them in the name of God take
the word of the prophet, do honour to him, and in him trust and
believe, touching the truth of what he relateth, whether he be
a true or a false prophet. And so it is also with all other history.
For if I should not believe all that is written by historians
of the glorious acts of Alexander or Caesar, I do not think the
ghost of Alexander or Caesar had any just cause to be offended,
or anybody else but the historian. If Livy say the gods made
once a cow speak, and we believe it not, we distrust not God
therein, but Livy. So that it is evident that whatsoever we believe,
upon no other reason than what is drawn from authority of men
only, and their writings, whether they be sent from God or not,
is faith in men only. CHAPTER VIII OF THE VIRTUES COMMONLY CALLED
INTELLECTUAL; AND THEIR CONTRARY DEFECTS
VIRTUE generally, in all sorts of subjects, is somewhat that
is valued for eminence; and consisteth in comparison. For if
all things were equally in all men, nothing would be prized.
And by virtues intellectual are always understood such abilities
of the mind as men praise, value, and desire should be in themselves;
and go commonly under the name of a good wit; though the same
word, wit, be used also to distinguish one certain ability from
the rest. These virtues are of two sorts; natural and acquired.
By natural, I mean not that which a man hath from his birth:
for that is nothing else but sense; wherein men differ so little
one from another, and from brute beasts, as it is not to be reckoned
amongst virtues. But I mean that wit which is gotten by use only,
and experience, without method, culture, or instruction. This
natural wit consisteth principally in two things: celerity of
imagining (that is, swift succession of one thought to another);
and steady direction to some approved end. On the contrary, a
slow imagination maketh that defect or fault of the mind which
is commonly called dullness, stupidity, and sometimes by other
names that signify slowness of motion, or difficulty to be moved.
And this difference of quickness is caused by the difference
of men's passions; that love and dislike, some one thing, some
another: and therefore some men's thoughts run one way, some
another, and are held to, observe differently the things that
pass through their imagination. And whereas in this succession
of men's thoughts there is nothing to observe in the things they
think on, but either in what they be like one another, or in
what they be unlike, or what they serve for, or how they serve
to such a purpose; those that observe their similitudes, in case
they be such as are but rarely observed by others, are said to
have a good wit; by which, in this occasion, is meant a good
fancy. But they that observe their differences, and dissimilitudes,
which is called distinguishing, and discerning, and judging between
thing and thing, in case such discerning be not easy, are said
to have a good judgement: and particularly in matter of conversation
and business, wherein times, places, and persons are to be discerned,
this virtue is called discretion. The former, that is, fancy,
without the help of judgement, is not commended as a virtue;
but the latter which is judgement, and discretion, is commended
for itself, without the help of fancy. Besides the discretion
of times, places, and persons, necessary to a good fancy, there
is required also an often application of his thoughts to their
end; that is to say, to some use to be made of them. This done,
he that hath this virtue will be easily fitted with similitudes
that will please, not only by illustration of his discourse,
and adorning it with new and apt metaphors, but also, by the
rarity of their invention. But without steadiness, and direction
to some end, great fancy is one kind of madness; such as they
have that, entering into any discourse, are snatched from their
purpose by everything that comes in their thought, into so many
and so long digressions and parentheses, that they utterly lose
themselves: which kind of folly I know no particular name for:
but the cause of it is sometimes want of experience; whereby
that seemeth to a man new and rare which doth not so to others:
sometimes pusillanimity; by which that seems great to him which
other men think a trifle: and whatsoever is new, or great, and
therefore thought fit to be told, withdraws a man by degrees
from the intended way of his discourse. In a good poem, whether
it be epic or dramatic, as also in sonnets, epigrams, and other
pieces, both judgement and fancy are required: but the fancy
must be more eminent; because they please for the extravagancy,
but ought not to displease by indiscretion. In a good history,
the judgement must be eminent; because the goodness consisteth
in the choice of the method, in the truth, and in the choice
of the actions that are most profitable to be known. Fancy has
no place, but only in adorning the style. In orations of praise,
and in invectives, the fancy is predominant; because the design
is not truth, but to honour or dishonour; which is done by noble
or by vile comparisons. The judgement does but suggest what circumstances
make an action laudable or culpable. In hortatives and pleadings,
as truth or disguise serveth best to the design in hand, so is
the judgement or the fancy most required. In demonstration, in
council, and all rigorous search of truth, sometimes does all;
except sometimes the understanding have need to be opened by
some apt similitude, and then there is so much use of fancy.
But for metaphors, they are in this case utterly excluded. For
seeing they openly profess deceit, to admit them into council,
or reasoning, were manifest folly. And in any discourse whatsoever,
if the defect of discretion be apparent, how extravagant soever
the fancy be, the whole discourse will be taken for a sign of
want of wit; and so will it never when the discretion is manifest,
though the fancy be never so ordinary. The secret thoughts of
a man run over all things holy, prophane, clean, obscene, grave,
and light, without shame, or blame; which verbal discourse cannot
do, farther than the judgement shall approve of the time, place,
and persons. An anatomist or physician may speak or write his
judgement of unclean things; because it is not to please, but
profit: but for another man to write his extravagant and pleasant
fancies of the same is as if a man, from being tumbled into the
dirt, should come and present himself before good company. And
it is the want of discretion that makes the difference. Again,
in professed remissness of mind, and familiar company, a man
may play with the sounds and equivocal significations of words,
and that many times with encounters of extraordinary fancy; but
in a sermon, or in public, or before persons unknown, or whom
we ought to reverence, there is no jingling of words that will
not be accounted folly: and the difference is only in the want
of discretion. So that where wit is wanting, it is not fancy
that is wanting, but discretion. Judgement, therefore, without
fancy is wit, but fancy without judgement, not. When the thoughts
of a man that has a design in hand, running over a multitude
of things, observes how they conduce to that design, or what
design they may conduce unto; if his observations be such as
are not easy, or usual, this wit of his is called prudence, and
dependeth on much experience, and memory of the like things and
their consequences heretofore. In which there is not so much
difference of men as there is in their fancies and judgements;
because the experience of men equal in age is not much unequal
as to the quantity, but lies in different occasions, every one
having his private designs. To govern well a family and a kingdom
are not different degrees of prudence, but different sorts of
business; no more than to draw a picture in little, or as great
or greater than the life, are different degrees of art. A plain
husbandman is more prudent in affairs of his own house than a
Privy Counsellor in the affairs of another man. To prudence,
if you add the use of unjust or dishonest means, such as usually
are prompted to men by fear or want, you have that crooked wisdom
which is called craft; which is a sign of pusillanimity. For
magnanimity is contempt of unjust or dishonest helps. And that
which the Latins call versutia (translated into English, shifting),
and is a putting off of a present danger or incommodity by engaging
into a greater, as when a man robs one to pay another, is but
a shorter-sighted craft; called versutia, from versura, which
signifies taking money at usury for the present payment of interest.
As for acquired wit (I mean acquired by method and instruction),
there is none but reason; which is grounded on the right use
of speech, and produceth the sciences. But of reason and science,
I have already spoken in the fifth and sixth chapters. The causes
of this difference of wits are in the passions, and the difference
of passions proceedeth partly from the different constitution
of the body, and partly from different education. For if the
difference proceeded from the temper of the brain, and the organs
of sense, either exterior or interior, there would be no less
difference of men in their sight, hearing, or other senses than
in their fancies and discretions. It proceeds, therefore, from
the passions; which are different, not only from the difference
of men's complexions, but also from their difference of customs
and education. The passions that most of all cause the differences
of wit are principally the more or less desire of power, of riches,
of knowledge, and of honour. All which may be reduced to the
first, that is, desire of power. For riches, knowledge and honour
are but several sorts of power. And therefore, a man who has
no great passion for any of these things, but is as men term
it indifferent; though he may be so far a good man as to be free
from giving offence, yet he cannot possibly have either a great
fancy or much judgement. For the thoughts are to the desires
as scouts and spies to range abroad and find the way to the things
desired, all steadiness of the mind's motion, and all quickness
of the same, proceeding from thence. For as to have no desire
is to be dead; so to have weak passions is dullness; and to have
passions indifferently for everything, giddiness and distraction;
and to have stronger and more vehement passions for anything
than is ordinarily seen in others is that which men call madness.
Whereof there be almost as may kinds as of the passions themselves.
Sometimes the extraordinary and extravagant passion proceedeth
from the evil constitution of the organs of the body, or harm
done them; and sometimes the hurt, and indisposition of the organs,
is caused by the vehemence or long continuance of the passion.
But in both cases the madness is of one and the same nature.
The passion whose violence or continuance maketh madness is either
great vainglory, which is commonly called pride and self-conceit,
or great dejection of mind. Pride subjecteth a man to anger,
the excess whereof is the madness called rage, and fury. And
thus it comes to pass that excessive desire of revenge, when
it becomes habitual, hurteth the organs, and becomes rage: that
excessive love, with jealousy, becomes also rage: excessive opinion
of a man's own self, for divine inspiration, for wisdom, learning,
form, and the like, becomes distraction and giddiness: the same,
joined with envy, rage: vehement opinion of the truth of anything,
contradicted by others, rage. Dejection subjects a man to causeless
fears, which is a madness commonly called melancholy apparent
also in diverse manners: as in haunting of solitudes and graves;
in superstitious behaviour; and in fearing some one, some another,
particular thing. In sum, all passions that produce strange and
unusual behaviour are called by the general name of madness.
But of the several kinds of madness, he that would take the pains
might enrol a legion. And if the excesses be madness, there is
no doubt but the passions themselves, when they tend to evil,
are degrees of the same. For example, though the effect of folly,
in them that are possessed of an opinion of being inspired, be
not visible always in one man by any very extravagant action
that proceedeth from such passion, yet when many of them conspire
together, the rage of the whole multitude is visible enough.
For what argument of madness can there be greater than to clamour,
strike, and throw stones at our best friends? Yet this is somewhat
less than such a multitude will do. For they will clamour, fight
against, and destroy those by whom all their lifetime before
they have been protected and secured from injury. And if this
be madness in the multitude, it is the same in every particular
man. For as in the midst of the sea, though a man perceive no
sound of that part of the water next him, yet he is well assured
that part contributes as much to the roaring of the sea as any
other part of the same quantity: so also, though we perceive
no great unquietness in one or two men, yet we may be well assured
that their singular passions are parts of the seditious roaring
of a troubled nation. And if there were nothing else that bewrayed
their madness, yet that very arrogating such inspiration to themselves
is argument enough. If some man in Bedlam should entertain you
with sober discourse, and you desire in taking leave to know
what he were that you might another time requite his civility,
and he should tell you he were God the Father; I think you need
expect no extravagant action for argument of his madness. This
opinion of inspiration, called commonly, private spirit, begins
very often from some lucky finding of an error generally held
by others; and not knowing, or not remembering, by what conduct
of reason they came to so singular a truth, as they think it,
though it be many times an untruth they light on, they presently
admire themselves as being in the special grace of God Almighty,
who hath revealed the same to them supernaturally by his Spirit.
Again, that madness is nothing else but too much appearing passion
may be gathered out of the effects of wine, which are the same
with those of the evil disposition of the organs. For the variety
of behaviour in men that have drunk too much is the same with
that of madmen: some of them raging, others loving, others laughing,
all extravagantly, but according to their several domineering
passions: for the effect of the wine does but remove dissimulation,
and take from them the sight of the deformity of their passions.
For, I believe, the most sober men, when they walk alone without
care and employment of the mind, would be unwilling the vanity
and extravagance of their thoughts at that time should be publicly
seen, which is a confession that passions unguided are for the
most part mere madness. The opinions of the world, both in ancient
and later ages, concerning the cause of madness have been two.
Some, deriving them from the passions; some, from demons or spirits,
either good or bad, which they thought might enter into a man,
possess him, and move his organs in such strange and uncouth
manner as madmen use to do. The former sort, therefore, called
such men, madmen: but the latter called them sometimes demoniacs
(that is, possessed with spirits); sometimes energumeni (that
is, agitated or moved with spirits); and now in Italy they are
called not only pazzi, madmen; but also spiritati, men possessed.
There was once a great conflux of people in Abdera, a city of
the Greeks, at the acting of the tragedy of Andromeda, upon an
extreme hot day: whereupon a great many of the spectators, falling
into fevers, had this accident from the heat and from the tragedy
together, that they did nothing but pronounce iambics, with the
names of Perseus and Andromeda; which, together with the fever,
was cured by the coming on of winter: and this madness was thought
to proceed from the passion imprinted by the tragedy. Likewise
there reigned a fit of madness in another Grecian city which
seized only the young maidens, and caused many of them to hang
themselves. This was by most then thought an act of the devil.
But one that suspected that contempt of life in them might proceed
from some passion of the mind, and supposing they did not contemn
also their honour, gave counsel to the magistrates to strip such
as so hanged themselves, and let them hang out naked. This, the
story says, cured that madness. But on the other side, the same
Grecians did often ascribe madness to the operation of the Eumenides,
or Furies; and sometimes of Ceres, Phoebus, and other gods: so
much did men attribute to phantasms as to think them aerial living
bodies, and generally to call them spirits. And as the Romans
in this held the same opinion with the Greeks, so also did the
Jews; for they called madmen prophets, or, according as they
thought the spirits good or bad, demoniacs; and some of them
called both prophets and demoniacs madmen; and some called the
same man both demoniac and madman. But for the Gentiles, it is
no wonder; because diseases and health, vices and virtues, and
many natural accidents were with them termed and worshipped as
demons. So that a man was to understand by demon as well sometimes
an ague as a devil. But for the Jews to have such opinion is
somewhat strange. For neither Moses nor Abraham pretended to
prophesy by possession of a spirit, but from the voice of God,
or by a vision or dream: nor is there anything in his law, moral
or ceremonial, by which they were taught there was any such enthusiasm,
or any possession. When God is said to take from the spirit that
was in Moses, and give to the seventy elders, the spirit of God,
taking it for the substance of God, is not divided.* The Scriptures
by the Spirit of God in man mean a man's spirit, inclined to
godliness. And where it is said, "Whom I have filled with
the spirit of wisdom to make garments for Aaron,"*(2) is
not meant a spirit put into them, that can make garments, but
the wisdom of their own spirits in that kind of work. In the
like sense, the spirit of man, when it produceth unclean actions,
is ordinarily called an unclean spirit; and so other spirits,
though not always, yet as often as the virtue or vice, so styled,
is extraordinary and eminent. Neither did the other prophets
of the Old Testament pretend enthusiasm, or that God spoke in
them, but to them, by voice, vision, or dream; and the "burden
of the Lord" was not possession, but command. How then could
the Jews fall into this opinion of possession? I can imagine
no reason but that which is common to all men; namely, the want
of curiosity to search natural causes; and their placing felicity
in the acquisition of the gross pleasures of the senses, and
the things that most immediately conduce thereto. For they that
see any strange and unusual ability or defect in a man's mind,
unless they see withal from what cause it may probably proceed,
can hardly think it natural; and if not natural, they must needs
think it supernatural; and then what can it be, but that either
God or the Devil is in him? And hence it came to pass, when our
Saviour was compassed about with the multitude, those of the
house doubted he was mad, and went out to hold him: but the Scribes
said he had Beelzebub, and that was it, by which he cast out
devils; as if the greater madman had awed the lesser.*(3) And
that some said, "He hath a devil, and is mad"; whereas
others, holding him for a prophet, said, "These are not
the words of one that hath a devil."*(4) So in the Old Testament
he that came to anoint Jehu was a Prophet; but some of the company
asked Jehu, "What came that madman for?"*(5) So that,
in sum, it is manifest that whosoever behaved himself in extraordinary
manner was thought by the Jews to be possessed either with a
good or evil spirit; except by the Sadducees, who erred so far
on the other hand as not to believe there were at all any spirits,
which is very near to direct atheism; and thereby perhaps the
more provoked others to term such men demoniacs rather than madmen.
* Numbers, 11. 25 *(2) Exodus, 28. 3 *(3) Mark, 3. 21 *(4)
John, 10. 20 *(5) II Kings, 9. 11
But why then does our Saviour proceed in the curing of them,
as if they were possessed, and not as it they were mad? To which
I can give no other kind of answer but that which is given to
those that urge the Scripture in like manner against the opinion
of the motion of the earth. The Scripture was written to show
unto men the kingdom of God, and to prepare their minds to become
His obedient subjects, leaving the world, and the philosophy
thereof, to the disputation of men for the exercising of their
natural reason. Whether the earth's or sun's motion make the
day and night, or whether the exorbitant actions of men proceed
from passion or from the Devil, so we worship him not, it is
all one, as to our obedience and subjection to God Almighty;
which is the thing for which the Scripture was written. As for
that our Saviour speaketh to the disease as to a person, it is
the usual phrase of all that cure by words only, as Christ did,
and enchanters pretend to do, whether they speak to a devil or
not. For is not Christ also said to have rebuked the winds?*
Is not he said also to rebuke a fever?*(2) Yet this does not
argue that a fever is a devil. And whereas many of those devils
are said to confess Christ, it is not necessary to interpret
those places otherwise than that those madmen confessed Him.
And whereas our Saviour speaketh of an unclean spirit that, having
gone out of a man, wandereth through dry places, seeking rest,
and finding none, and returning into the same man with seven
other spirits worse than himself;*(3) it is manifestly a parable,
alluding to a man that, after a little endeavour to quit his
lusts, is vanquished by the strength of them, and becomes seven
times worse than he was. So that I see nothing at all in the
Scripture that requireth a belief that demoniacs were any other
thing but madmen.
* Matthew, 8. 26 *(2) Luke, 4. 39 *(3) Matthew, 12. 43
There is yet another fault in the discourses of some men,
which may also be numbered amongst the sorts of madness; namely,
that abuse of words, whereof I have spoken before in the fifth
chapter by the name of absurdity. And that is when men speak
such words as, put together, have in them no signification at
all, but are fallen upon, by some, through misunderstanding of
the words they have received and repeat by rote; by others, from
intention to deceive by obscurity. And this is incident to none
but those that converse in questions of matters incomprehensible,
as the Schoolmen; or in questions of abstruse philosophy. The
common sort of men seldom speak insignificantly, and are therefore,
by those other egregious persons, counted idiots. But to be assured
their words are without anything correspondent to them in the
mind, there would need some examples; which if any man require,
let him take a Schoolman into his hands and see if he can translate
any one chapter concerning any difficult point; as the Trinity,
the Deity, the nature of Christ, transubstantiation, free will,
etc., into any of the modern tongues, so as to make the same
intelligible; or into any tolerable Latin, such as they were
acquainted withal that lived when the Latin tongue was vulgar.
What is the meaning of these words: "The first cause does
not necessarily inflow anything into the second, by force of
the essential subordination of the second causes, by which it
may help it to work?" They are the translation of the title
of the sixth chapter of Suarez's fi