leviathan by thomas hobbs leviathan or the matter form and power of a commonwealth ecclesiastical and civil introduction nature the art whereby god has 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 foreseeing life is but a motion of limbs the beginning whereof is in some principle 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 has 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 defense 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 counselors by whom all things needful for it to know are suggested unto it are the memory equity and laws and 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 and authority of a sovereign and what is it that preserveth or dissolve with 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 cinchers 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 that is no sketesum read thyself which was not meant as it is now used to countenance either the barber or state of men in power towards their inferiors or to encourage men of low degree to a saucy behavior towards their betters but to teach us that 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 searches 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 prospicuously the pains left another will be only to consider if he also finds not the same in himself for this kind of doctrine admitteth no other demonstration part one of man chapter one 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 everyone 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 a man's body and by diversity of working produces 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 immediately as in seeing hearing and smelling which pressure by the mediation of the nerves and other strings and membranes of the body continued inwards to the brain and heart causes there a resistance or counter pressure or endeavor of the heart to deliver itself which endeavor 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 coloured figure to the ear in a sound to the nostril in an odor to the tongue and palate in a saver and to the rest of the body in heat gold hardness softness and such other qualities as we discern by feeling all which qualities called sensible are in the object that causes 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 produces 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 produces the din so do the bodies also we see or hear produce the same by their strong though unobserved action for if those colors and sounds were in the bodies or objects that caused 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 objects 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 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 2 of imagination that when a thing lies still unless somewhat else stir it it will lie still forever is a truth that no man doubts of but that when a thing is in motion it will eternally be in motion unless someone else stay it though the reason be the same namely that nothing can change itself is not so easily ascended 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 latitude 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 consists of 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 constipation which is more than man has to things inanimate absurdly when a body is once in motion it moveth unless something else hinder it eternally and whatsoever hindereth it cannot in an instant but in time and by degrees quite extinguish it and as we see in the water though the winds 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 not less exercise their virtue by which they are visible in the day then 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 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 incense were moved so the 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 have diverse names much memory or memory of many things is called experience again imagination being only of those things which have been formally perceived by sense either all at once or by parts at several times the former which is the imagining the whole object as it was presented to the sense is simple imagination as when one imagineth a man or horse which he hath seen before the other is compounded as when from the sight of a man at one time and of a horse at another we conceive in our mind a centaur so when a man compoundeth the image of his own person with the image of the actions of another man as when a man 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 a tent 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 does 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 incense 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 connection they have with the brain and other organs when they be distempered to keep the same in motion whereby the imaginations they are formally made appear as if a man were waking saving that the organs of sense being now been numbed so as there is no new object which can muster and obscure them with a more vigorous impression a dream must needs be more clear in this silence of sense than our waking thoughts and hence it comes 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 consistently think of the same person's places objects and actions that i do waking no 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 breeders dreams of fear and raises the thought of image of some fearful object the motion from the brain to the inner parts and from the inner parts the brain being reciprocal and that as anger causes heat in some parts of the body when we are awake so when we sleep the overheating of some parts causes 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 maketh heat in certain other parts of the body so also too much heat in those parts while we sleep raiseth in the brain the 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 of fearful thoughts and whose conscience is much troubled and that sleepeth without the circumstances of going to bed or putting off his clothes has one that not a thin 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 howard 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 frighted 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 in 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 worship satyrs fawns 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 confused 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 or 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 farther 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 there on by which crafty ambitious persons abused the simple people then 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 that senses receive the species of things and deliver them to the common sense and the common sense delivers them over to the fancy and the fancy to the memory and the memory to the judgment like handling 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 contextual of the names of things into affirmations negations and other forms of speech and of this kind of understanding i shall speak hereafter chapter 3 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 where if we have not formally had sense in whole or in parts so we have no transition from one imagination to another where have 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 since insomuch is the former coming again to take place and be predominant the latter followeth by coherence of the matter moved in such manner as water upon a plane table is drawn which way any one part of it is guided by the finger but because incense to one and the same thing perceives 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 loot 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 up the thought of the delivering up of christ and that thought the thought of the thirty pence which was the price of that treason and thence easily followed that malicious question and all this in a moment of time for thought is quick the second 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 arise at the thought of some means we have seen produce the like of that which we aim at and from the thought of that and 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 re-speaker phenym 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 buy 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 our hunger thirst lust and anger in some the discourse of the mind when it is governed by design as nothing but seeking or the faculty of invention which the latins called sagacitas and solertia are 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 a compass wherever he is to seek and then his thoughts run over all 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 recons what he has seen follow on the like crime before having his 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 though 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 seldom or fail him the present only has a being in nature things past having 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 would 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 precedes 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 evident antecedent of the consequent and contrarily the consequent of the antecedent when the like consequences have been observed before and the oftener they have been observed the less uncertain is the sign and therefore he that has most experience in any kind of business has most signs whereby to guess at the future time and consequently is the most prudent and so much more prudent than he that is new in that kind of business as not to be equal by any advantage of natural and extemporary wit though perhaps many young men think the contrary nevertheless it is not prudence that distinguish 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 have first come into civil war and then to ruin upon the site of the ruins of any other state we'll guess the like war and the like courses have been there also but this conjecture has the same certainty 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 learn 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 the bounds of the things named having no conception of the thing but of our own inability and therefore the name of god is used not to make us conceive him for he is incomprehensible and his greatness and power are unconceivable but that we may honor him and 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 in the same place at once for none of these things ever have nor can be incident to sense but are absurd speeches taken upon credit without any signification at all from deceived philosophers and deceived or deceiving schoolmen chapter 4 of speech the invention of printing though ingenious compared with the invention of letters is no great matter but who is 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 agunar king of phoenicia a profitable invention for continuing the memory of time passed and the conjunction of mankind dispersed into so many in distant regions of the earth and with all difficult as proceeding from a watchful observation of the diverse motions of the tongue palette 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 connection whereby men register their thoughts recall them when they are passed and also declare them to one 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 colors sounds fancies relations much less the names of words and speech as general special affirmative negative interrogative optive infinitive all which are useful and least of all of entity intentionality quiddity and other significant 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 preceded 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 labor 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 connection 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 affect which in some is acquiring of arts secondly to show to others that knowledge which we have attained which is to counsel to 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 users there are also four correspondent abuses first when men register their thoughts wrong by the inconsistency of the signification of their words by which they register for their conception 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 by words when 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 service to the remembrance of the consequences of causes and effects consists within the imposing of names and the connection 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 and 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 labor 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 angle's 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 has 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 labor of the mind saving the first and makes that which was found true here and now 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 feigned to apply their fingers of one or both hands to those things they desire to keep account of and that thence had 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 wellbeing of mankind when two names are joined together in 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 later 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 the truth consists of 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 believed 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 but spend time in fluttering over their books as birds that entering by the chimney and finding themselves enclosed in a chamber flutter at the false light of a glass window for want of wit to consider which way they came in so that in the right definition of names lies the first use of speech which is the acquisition of science and in wrong or no definitions lies the first abuse from which precede all false and senseless tenets which make those men that take their institution from the authority of books and not from their own meditation to be as much below the condition of ignorant men as men and dude 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 er but 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 latin is called the counts of money rashionus and accounting ratios and nation and at which we in bills or books of account call items they called nomina that is names and hence 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 signifies 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 rested and diversified this diversity of names may be reduced to four general heads first a thing may enter into account from 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 resting we make a name for that accident which we consider and for living put into 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 color 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 maybe 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 inducible three want four and the like which are nevertheless of use in reckoning or in correcting of reckoning and call to mind are past cognitions 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 import virtue in blown virtue are as absurd and insignificant as a round quadrangle and therefore you shall hardly meet with a senseless and insignificant word that is not made up of some latin or greek names a frenchman seldom hears our savior called by the name of parole yet by the name of verb often yet verb 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 connection 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 the mind what kinds of speeches signify the appetites aversions and passions of man's mind and of their use and abuse i so 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 about 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 disposition and interest of the speaker such as are the names of virtues and vices for one man calleth wisdom what another call of fear and one cruelty what another justice one prodigality what another magnanimity one gravity what another stupidity etc and therefore such names can never be true grounds of any rashiosa nation no more can metaphors and tropes of speech but these are less dangerous because they profess their inconstancy which the other do not chapter 5 of reason and science when a 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 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 it 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 inconsequences 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 passions 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 so ever there is place for addition and subtraction there also is place for reason and where these have no place their reason has nothing at all to do out of all which we may define that is to say determinate what that is which is meant by the 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 prove our reckonings to other men and as in arithmetic unpracticed men must and professors themselves may often er and cast up false so also in any other subject of reasoning they are blessed most attentive and most practiced 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 buy 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 right reason constituted by nature so it is also in all debates of what kind so ever and when men that think themselves wiser than all others clamor and demand right reason for judge yet seek no more but that things should be determined by no other men's reason but their own it is as intolerable in the society of men as it is in play after trump is turned to use for trump on every occasion that suit whereof they have most in their hand for they do nothing else that will have every of their passions as it comes to bear sway in them to be taken for right reason and that in their own controversies betraying their want of right reason by the claim they lay to it 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 an 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 does not fetch them from the first items in every reckoning which are the significations of names settled by definitions loses his labor 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 in 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 the 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 and 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 inquire 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 privilege of absurdity to which no living creature is subject but man only and of men those are of all most subject to it that profess philosophy for it is 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 rasheoscination from the definitions or explications of the names they are to use which is a method that have been used only in geometry whose conclusions have thereby been made indisputable the first cause of absurd conclusions i ascribe to the want of method in that they begin not their rasciosa nation from definitions that is from settled significations of their words as if they could cast count without knowing the value of the numerical 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 connection of their names into assertions and therefore 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 our spirits etc 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 color is in the body the sound is in the air etc the fourth to the giving of names of bodies to names or speeches as they do that say there be things universal that a living creature is genus or a general thing etc 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 the sixth to the use of metaphors tropes and other rhetorical figures instead of words proper for though it'd 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 the speaking of truth such speeches are not to be admitted the seventh to names that signify nothing but are taken up and learned by road from 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 mistaken geometry and also to persist in it when another detects his error in 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 assertion made by connection of one of them to another and so to syllogisms which are the connections of one assertion to another till we come to a knowledge of all the consequences of names are pertaining 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 especially 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 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 by having no thought of generation i may 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 human minds is prospicuous 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 ignis fatoui 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 sapiencia 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 in acquired science of where he can offend or by 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 offense 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 pretense 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 where of 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 subjects to many exceptions is a sign of folly and generally scorned by the name of pedentry 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 own private affairs but in public they study more the reputation of their own wit than the success of another's business