The English Works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, Volume 04 (of 11)

CHAPTER I.. [sidenote: Introduction.]

1. The true and perspicuous explication of the elements of laws natural and politic (which is my present scope) dependeth upon the knowledge of what is human nature, what is body politic, and what it is we call a law; concerning which points, as the writings of men from antiquity downwards have still increased, so also have the doubts and controversies concerning the same: and seeing that true knowledge begetteth not doubt nor controversy, but knowledge, it is manifest from the present controversies, that they, which have heretofore written thereof, have not well understood their own subject.

2. Harm I can do none, though I err no less than they; for I shall leave men but as they are, in doubt and dispute: but, intending not to take any principle upon trust, but only to put men in mind of what they know already, or may know by their own experience, I hope to err the less; and when I do, it must proceed from too hasty concluding, which I will endeavour as much as I can to avoid.

3. On the other side, if reasoning aright win not consent, which may very easily happen, from them that being confident of their own knowledge weigh not what is said, the fault is not mine, but theirs; for as it is my part to shew my reasons, so it is theirs to bring attention.

4. Man’s nature is the sum of his natural faculties and powers, as the faculties of nutrition, motion, generation, sense, reason, &c. These powers we do unanimously call natural, and are contained in the definition of man, under these words, animal and rational.

5. According to the two principal parts of man, I divide his faculties into two sorts, faculties of the body, and faculties of the mind.

6. Since the minute and distinct anatomy of the powers of the body is nothing necessary to the present purpose, I will only sum them up in these three heads, power nutritive, power motive, and power generative.

7. Of the powers of the mind there be two sorts, cognitive, imaginative, or conceptive and motive; and first of cognitive.

For the understanding of what I mean by the power cognitive, we must remember and acknowledge that there be in our minds continually certain images or conceptions of the things without us, insomuch that if a man could be alive, and all the rest of the world annihilated, he should nevertheless retain the image thereof, and all those things which he had before seen or perceived in it; every one by his own experience knowing, that the absence or destruction of things once imagined doth not cause the absence or destruction of the imagination itself. This imagery and representations of the qualities of the thing without, is that we call our conception, imagination, ideas, notice or knowledge of them; and the faculty or power by which we are capable of such knowledge, is that I here call cognitive power, or conceptive, the power of knowing or conceiving.

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CHAPTER II.

2. Definition of sense. 4. Four propositions concerning the nature of conceptions. 5. The first proved. 6. The second proved. 7, 8. The third proved. 9. The fourth proved. 10. The main deception of sense.

1. Having declared what I mean by the word conception, and other words equivalent thereunto, I come to the conceptions themselves, to shew their differences, their causes, and the manner of the production, so far as is necessary for this place.

2. Originally all conceptions proceed from the action of the thing itself, whereof it is the conception: now when the action is present, the conception it produceth is also called sense; and the thing by whose action the same is produced, is called the object of the sense.

3. By our several organs we have several conceptions of several qualities in the objects; for by sight we have a conception or image composed of colour and figure, which is all the notice and knowledge the object imparteth to us of its nature by the eye. By hearing we have a conception called sound, which is all the knowledge we have of the quality of the object from the ear. And so the rest of the senses are also conceptions of several qualities, or natures of their objects.

4. Because the image in vision consisting of colour and shape is the knowledge we have of the qualities of the object of that sense; it is no hard matter for a man to fall into this opinion, that the same colour and shape are the very qualities themselves; and for the same cause, that sound and noise are the qualities of the bell, or of the air. And this opinion hath been so long received, that the contrary must needs appear a great paradox; and yet the introduction of species visible and intelligible (which is necessary for the maintenance of that opinion) passing to and fro from the object, is worse than any paradox, as being a plain impossibility. I shall therefore endeavour to make plain these points:

That the subject wherein colour and image are inherent, is not the object or thing seen.

That there is nothing without us (really) which we call an image or colour.

That the said image or colour is but an apparition unto us of the motion, agitation, or alteration, which the object worketh in the brain, or spirits, or some internal substance of the head.

That as in vision, so also in conceptions that arise from the other senses, the subject of their inherence is not the object, but the sentient.

5. Every man hath so much experience as to have seen the sun and the other visible objects by reflection in the water and glasses; and this alone is sufficient for this conclusion, that colour and image may be there where the thing seen is not. But because it may be said that notwithstanding the image in the water be not in the object, but a thing merely phantastical, yet there may be colour really in the thing itself: I will urge further this experience, that divers times men see directly the same object double, as two candles for one, which may happen from distemper, or otherwise without distemper if a man will, the organs being either in their right temper, or equally distempered; the colours and figures in two such images of the same thing cannot be inherent therein, because the thing seen cannot be in two places.

One of these images therefore is not inherent in the object: but seeing the organs of the sight are then in equal temper or distemper, the one of them is no more inherent than the other; and consequently neither of them both are in the object; which is the first proposition, mentioned in the precedent number.

6. Secondly, that the image of any thing by reflection in a glass or water or the like, is not any thing in or behind the glass, or in or under the water, every man may grant to himself; which is the second proposition.

7. For the third, we are to consider, first that upon every great agitation or concussion of the brain (as it happeneth from a stroke, especially if the stroke be upon the eye) whereby the optic nerve suffereth any great violence, there appeareth before the eyes a certain light, which light is nothing without, but an apparition only, all that is real being the concussion or motion of the parts of that nerve; from which experience we may conclude, that apparition of light is really nothing but motion within. If therefore from lucid bodies there can be derived motion, so as to affect the optic nerve in such manner as is proper thereunto, there will follow an image of light somewhere in that line by which the motion was last derived to the eye; that is to say, in the object, if we look directly on it, and in the glass or water, when we look upon it in the line of reflection, which in effect is the third proposition; namely, that image and colour is but an apparition to us of that motion, agitation, or alteration which the object worketh in the brain or spirits, or some internal substance in the head.

8. But that from all lucid, shining and illuminate bodies, there is a motion produced to the eye, and, through the eye, to the optic nerve, and so into the brain, by which that apparition of light or colour is affected, is not hard to prove. And first, it is evident that the fire, the only lucid body here upon earth, worketh by motion equally every way; insomuch as the motion thereof stopped or inclosed, it is presently extinguished, and no more fire. And further, that that motion, whereby the fire worketh, is dilation, and contraction of itself alternately, commonly called scintillation or glowing, is manifest also by experience. From such motion in the fire must needs arise a rejection or casting from itself of that part of the medium which is contiguous to it, whereby that part also rejecteth the next, and so successively one part beateth back another to the very eye; and in the same manner the exterior part of the eye presseth the interior, (the laws of refraction still observed). Now the interior coat of the eye is nothing else but a piece of the optic nerve; and therefore the motion is still continued thereby into the brain, and by resistance or reaction of the brain, is also a rebound into the optic nerve again; which we not conceiving as motion or rebound from within, do think it is without, and call it light; as hath been already shewed by the experience of a stroke. We have no reason to doubt, that the fountain of light, the sun, worketh by any other ways than the fire, at least in this matter. And thus all vision hath its original from such motion as is here described: for where there is no light, there is no sight; and therefore colour also must be the same thing with light, as being the effect of the lucid bodies: their difference being only this, that when the light cometh directly from the fountain to the eye, or indirectly by reflection from clean and polite bodies, and such as have not any particular motion internal to alter it, we call it light; but when it cometh to the eye by reflection from uneven, rough, and coarse bodies, or such as are affected with internal motion of their own that may alter it, then we call it colour; colour and light differing only in this, that the one is pure, and the other perturbed light. By that which hath been said, not only the truth of the third proposition, but also the whole manner of producing light and colour, is apparent.

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