Thomas Hobbes: Leviathan (Longman Library of Primary Sources in Philosophy)

Thomas Hobbes, Marshall Missner

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781315507590
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

Part of the "Longman Library of Primary Sources in Philosophy, " this edition of Hobbes's Leviathan is framed by a pedagogical structure designed to make this important work of philosophy more accessible and meaningful for undergraduates.

PART 1: Of Man

CHAPTER 1

Of Sense

Sense. Concerning the thoughts of man, I will consider them first, individually, and then in train, or in their dependence upon one another. Individually, every thought is a representation or appearance of some quality or other accident of a body outside of us, which is commonly called an object. These objects work on the eyes, ears, and other parts of a man’s body, and by their diverse workings produce a diversity of appearances.

The origin of them all is that which we call SENSE, for there is no conception in a man’s mind which has not at first, totally or by parts, been begotten upon the organs of sense. The rest are derived from that origin.¹

To know the natural cause of sense is not very necessary to the business now in hand, and I have elsewhere written at large on this subject.² Nevertheless, to fill each part of my present project, I will briefly here deliver some of the main points.

The cause of sense is the external body or object which presses the organ proper to each sense, either immediately, as in taste and touch, or mediately, as in seeing, hearing and smelling. This pressure, by the mediation of the nerves and other strings and membranes of the body continued inward to the brain and heart, causes a resistance there, or counter-pressure, or endeavor of the heart to deliver itself. This endeavor, because it pushes outward, seems to be some outside object. And this seeming or fancy is what men call sense. It consists of light or a shape of color to the eye, sound to the ear, odor to the nostrils, taste to the tongue and palate, and heat, cold, hardness, softness, and such other qualities we discern as feelings to the rest of the body. All these qualities which are called sensible are in the object that causes them by means of several motions of the matter by which it presses our diverse organs. Sensible qualities in us are just diverse motions, for motion produces nothing but motion. Their appearance to us is merely a fancy,³ the same in waking as in dreaming. And as pressing, rubbing, or striking the eye makes us fancy a light, and pressing the ear produces a din, so do bodies that we see or hear, produce the same effect by their strong, though unobserved action. For if those colors and sounds were in the bodies or objects that cause them, they could not be separated from them by glasses⁴ and in echoes by the reflection of sound, as we experience them to be in cases where we know the thing we see to be in one place, and the appearance in another. And though at some distances, the real and very objects seems to be invested with the fancy it begets in us, yet still the object is one thing, and the image or fancy is another. So sense, in all case, is nothing else but original fancy, caused, as I have said, by the pressure, which is the motion of external things upon our eyes, ears and other such organs.

But the schools of philosophy, through all the universities of Christendom, that are grounded upon certain texts of Aristotle, teach another doctrine.⁵ They say that the cause of vision, the thing seen, sends forth on every side a visible species, in English a visible show, apparition, or aspect, or a being seen, the reception of which in the eye is seeing. And the cause of hearing, the thing heard, sends forth an audible species, that is an audible aspect, or audible being seen, which upon entering the ear, makes hearing. They even say that the cause of understanding, the thing understood, sends forth an intelligible species, an intelligible being seen, which coming into the understanding makes us understand. I do not say this to criticize the use of universities, but since I will speak later of their role in a commonwealth, I must let you see on all occasions what things should be amended in them, and one among these is the frequency of meaningless speech.

Endnotes

1. In this passage Hobbes presents the standard view of what later came to be called “empiricism”. Hobbes is not usually included in the group of philosophers that have been called empiricists.

2. Hobbes is referring to his book De Corpore in which he presented his metaphysical view that all that exists is matter in motion.

3. Hobbes himself says that ‘fancy’ is just another term for ‘image’.

4. Hobbes is referring here to mirrors.

5. In this paragraph and in many other places Hobbes took the opportunity to criticize the Scholastic Philosophy developed in the Middle Ages that was based on Aristotle, and that was still being taught at his alma mater, Oxford University.

CHAPTER 2

Of Imagination

Imagination. No man doubts that it is a truth that when a thing lies still, unless somewhat else stirs it, it will lie still forever. But when a thing is in motion, it will eternally be in motion, unless somewhat else stays it. The reason for both is the same, that nothing can change itself, though this is not so easily assented to. For men measure, not only other men, but all other things, by themselves, and since they find themselves subject after undergoing motion to pain and lassitude, think everything else grows weary of motion and seeks repose of its own accord. They little consider whether the desire of rest they find in themselves consists of some other motion. This is the kind of thinking the schools use when they say that heavy bodies fall downwards out of an appetite to rest and conserve their nature in that place which is most proper for them. They absurdly ascribe appetite and knowledge of what is good for their own conservation to inanimate things, which is more knowledge than a man has.

When a body is once in motion, it moves eternally unless something else hinders it, and whatever hinders it, cannot extinguish it in an instant, but can do so in time and by degrees. We see this in the water, when the wind ceases, the waves do not stop rolling over for a long time after. The same thing happens in the motions of the internal parts of a man when he sees or dreams, etc. For after the object is removed, or the eye is shut, we still retain an image of the seen thing, though it is more obscure than when we actually see it. And this is what the Latins call imagination, from the image made in seeing, and this applies in the same way, although improperly, to all the other senses. 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, in sleeping as well as in waking.

The decay of sense in waking men is not the decay of the motion that causes the sense, but is an obscuring of it. In a similar manner the light of the sun obscures the light of the stars, for the stars do no less exercise their virtue by which they are visible in the day as in the night. Because among the many strokes which our eyes, ears and other organs receive from external bodies, only the predominant one is sensible. The light of the sun being predominant, we are not affected by the action of the stars. Any object that is removed from before our eyes, though the impression it made in us remains, is obscured by 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 by the noise of the day. It follows that the longer the time is after the sight or sense of any object, the weaker is the imagination of it. In time the continual change of man’s body destroys the parts that were moved by the sense, so that the distance of time and of place has one and the same effect on us. For as at a great distance of place, what we look at appears dim and without distinction of its smaller parts, and as voices grow weak and inarticulate, so also after a great distance of time, our imagination of the past becomes weak. We lose, for example, many particular streets of cities we have seen and many particular circumstances of actions we performed. This decaying sense, when we would refer to the thing itself, I mean fancy, 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. This means that imagination and memory are one thing, but diverse considerations provide it with different names.

Memory. Much memory, or memory of many things, is called experience. Imagination is only of those things which have been earlier perceived, either all at one time or by parts at several times. The former is the imagining of a whole object as it was presented to the sense, is simple imagination, as when one imagines a man or a horse that one has seen before. The latter 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 compounds 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 happens often to those that are much taken with reading romances, it is a compound imagination, and is but a fiction of the mind. There are also other imaginations that rise in men while awake from the great impression made in sense. From gazing upon the sun, the impression leaves an image of the sun before our eyes a long time after. From the long and vehement attention to geometrical figures, a man shall while in the dark, though awake, have the images of lines and angles before his eyes. This kind of fancy has no particular name, being a thing that does not commonly fall into men’s discourse.

Dreams. The imaginations of those that sleep we call dreams. And these like all other imaginations have been before, either totally or by parcels, in the senses. The brains and nerves, the necessary organs of sense, are so benumbed in sleep that they are not easily moved by the action of external objects. So the imaginations in sleep, and thus dreams, proceed from the agitation of the inward parts of a man’s body. These inward parts which are connected with the brain and other organs, keep them in motion when they become distempered. The imagination which is thereby made appears to the man as if he were awake, and since the organs of sense are so benumbed so that there is no new actual object which can master and obscure the imagination with a more vigorous impression, the dream becomes more clear in this silence of sense than our waking thoughts. And that is why it is a hard matter, which many think impossible, to distinguish exactly between sense and dreaming. For my own part, I consider that in dreams I do not often nor constantly think of the same persons, places, objects and actions that I do when awake, nor remember a long train of coherent thoughts when I am dreaming as I do at other times. Also, when I am awake I often observe the absurdity of dreams, but never dream of the absurdity of my waking thoughts. Thus, I am well satisfied, that being awake, I know I do not dream, even though when I dream I think myself awake.

Seeing that dreams are caused by the distemper of some of the inward parts of the body, diverse distempers must necessarily cause diff...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Editor’s Introduction
• Thomas Hobbes
• Author’s Introduction
• Part 1 Of Man
• Chapter 1 Of Sense
• Chapter 2 Of Imagination
• Chapter 3 Of the Consequence or Train of Imaginations
• Chapter 4 Of Speech
• Chapter 5 Of Reason and Science
• Chapter 6 The Passions
• Chapter 7 Of the Ends, or Resolutions of Discourse
• Chapter 8 Intellectual Virtues
• Chapter 9 Of the Several Subjects of Knowledge
• Chapter 10 Of Power, Worth, Dignity, Honor and Worthiness
• Chapter 11 Of the Difference of Manners
• Chapter 12 Of Religion
• Chapter 13 Of the Natural Condition of Mankind as Concerning Their Felicity and Misery
• Chapter 14 Of the First and Second Natural Laws and of Contracts
• Chapter 15 Of Other Laws of Nature
• Chapter 16 Of Persons, Authors, and Things Personated
• Part 2 Of Commonwealth
• Chapter 17 Of the Causes, Generation and Definition of a Commonwealth
• Chapter 18 Of the Rights of Sovereigns by Institution
• Chapter 19 Of the Several Kinds of Commonwealth by Institution and the Secession to the Sovereign Power
• Chapter 20 Of Paternal and Despotic Dominion
• Chapter 21 Of the Liberty of Subjects
• Chapter 22 Of Systems Subject, Political and Private
• Chapter 23 Of the Public Ministers of Sovereign Power
• Chapter 24 Of the Nutrition and Procreation of a Commonwealth
• Chapter 25 Of Counsel
• Chapter 26 Of Civil Laws
• Chapter 27 Of Crimes, Excuses and Extenuations
• Chapter 28 Of Punishments or Rewards
• Chapter 29 Of Those Things That Weaken, or Tend to the Dissolution of a Commonwealth
• Chapter 30 Of the Office of the Sovereign Representative
• Chapter 31 Of the Kingdom of God by Nature
• Index