# Supplement to the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Editions of the Encyclopædia Britannica/Dissertation First/Part 1/Chapter 2/Section 1

CHAPTER II.
From the publication of Bacon’s philosophical works, till that of the Essay on Human Understanding.
Section I.
Progress of Philosophy in England during this period.
Bacon.
The state of science towards the close of the sixteenth century, presented a field of observation singularly calculated to attract the curiosity, and to awaken the genius of Bacon; nor was it the least of his personal advantages, that, as the son of one of Queen Elizabeth’s ministers, he had a ready access, wherever he went, to the most enlightened society in Europe. While yet only in the seventeenth year of his age, he was removed by his father from Cambridge to Paris, where it is not to be doubted, that the novelty of the literary scene must have largely contributed to cherish the natural liberality and independence of his ​mind. Sir Joshua Reynolds has remarked, in one of his academical Discourses, that “every seminary of learning is surrounded with an atmosphere of floating knowledge, where every mind may imbibe somewhat congenial to its own original conceptions.” He might have added, with still greater truth, that it is an atmosphere, of which it is more peculiarly salutary for those who have been elsewhere reared to breathe the air. The remark is applicable to higher pursuits than were in the contemplation of this philosophical artist; and it suggests a hint of no inconsiderable value for the education of youth.
The merits of Bacon, as the father of Experimental Philosophy, are so universally acknowledged, that it would be superfluous to touch upon them here. The lights which he has struck out in various branches of the Philosophy of Mind, have been much less attended to; although the whole scope and tenor of his speculations shew, that to this study his genius was far more strongly and happily turned, than to that of the Material World. It was not, as some seem to have imagined, by sagacious anticipations of particular discoveries afterwards to he made in physics, that his writings have had so powerful an influence in accelerating the advancement of that science. In the extent and accuracy of his physical knowledge, he was far inferior to many of his predecessors; but he surpassed them all in his knowledge of the laws, the resources, and the limits of the human understanding. The sanguine expectations with which he looked forwards to the future, were founded solely on his confidence in the untried capacities of the mind; and on a conviction of the possibility of invigorating and guiding, by means of logical rules, those faculties which, in all our researches after truth, are the organs or instruments to be employed. “Such rules,” as he himself has observed, “do in some sort equal men’s wits, and leave no great advantage or pre-eminence to the perfect and excellent motions of the spirit. To draw a straight line, or to describe a circle, by aim of hand only, there must be a great difference between an unsteady and unpractised hand, and a steady and practised; but to do it by rule or compass it is much alike.”
Nor is it merely as a logician that Bacon is entitled to notice on the present occasion. It would be difficult to name another writer prior to Locke, whose works are enriched with so many just observations on the intellectual phenomena. Among these, the most valuable relate to the laws of Memory, and of Imagination; the latter of which subjects he seems to have studied with peculiar care. In one short but beautiful paragraph concerning Poetry (under which title may be comprehended all the various creations of this faculty), he has exhausted every thing that philosophy and good sense have yet had to offer, on what has been since called the Beau Ideal; a topic, which has furnished occasion to so many ​over-refinements among the French critics, and to so much extravagance and mysticism in the cloud-capt metaphysics of the new German school. In considering imagination as connected with the nervous system, more particularly as connected with that species of sympathy to which medical writers have given the name of imitation, he has suggested some very important hints, which none of his successors have hitherto prosecuted; and has, at the same time, left an example of cautious inquiry, worthy to be studied by all who may attempt to investigate the laws regulating the union between Mind and Body. His illustration of the different classes of prejudices incident to human nature, is, in point of practical utility, at least equal to any thing on that head to be found in Locke; of whom it is impossible to forbear remarking, as a circumstance not easily explicable, that he should have resumed this important discussion, without once mentioning the name of his great predecessor. The chief improvement made by Locke, in the farther prosecution of the argument, is the application of Hobbes’s theory of association, to explain in what manner these prejudices are originally generated.
In Bacon’s scattered hints on topics connected with the Philosophy of the Mind, strictly ​so called, nothing is more remarkable than the precise and just ideas they display of the proper aim of this science. He had manifestly reflected much and successfully on the operations of his own understanding, and had studied with uncommon sagacity the intellectual characters of others. Of his reflections and observations on both subjects, he has recorded many important results; and has in general stated them without the slightest reference to any physiological theory concerning their causes, or to any analogical explanations founded on the caprices of metaphorical language. If, on some occasions, he assumes the existence of animal spirits, as the medium of communication between Soul and Body, it must be remembered, that this was then the universal belief of the learned; and that it was at a much later period not less confidently avowed by Locke. Nor ought it to be overlooked (I mention it to the credit of both authors), that in such instances the fact is commonly so stated, as to render it easy for the reader to detach it from the theory. As to the scholastic questions concerning the nature and essence of mind,—whether it be extended or unextended? whether it have any relation to space or to time? or whether (as was contended by others) it exist in every ubi, but in no place?—Bacon has uniformly passed them over with silent contempt; and has probably contributed not less effectually to bring them into general discredit, by this indirect intimation of his own opinion, than if he had descended to the ungrateful task of exposing their absurdity.
While Bacon, however, so cautiously avoids these unprofitable discussions about the nature of Mind, he decidedly states his conviction, that the faculties of Man differ not merely in degree, but in kind, from the instincts of the brutes. “I do not, therefore,” he observes on one occasion, “approve of that confused and promiscuous method in which philosophers are accustomed to treat of pneumatology; as if the human ​Soul ranked above those of brutes, merely like the sun above the stars, or like gold above other metals.”
Among the various topics started by Bacon for the consideration of future logicians, he did not overlook (what may be justly regarded, in a practical view, as the most interesting of all logical problems) the question concerning the mutual influence of Thought and of Language on each other. “Men believe,” says he, “that their reason governs their words; but, it often happens, that words have power enough to re-act upon reason.” This aphorism may be considered as the text of by far the most valuable part of Locke’s Essay,—that which relates to the imperfections and abuse of words; but it was not till within the last twenty years, that its depth and importance were perceived in all their extent. I need scarcely say, that I allude to the excellent Memoirs of M. Prevost and of M. Degerando, on “Signs considered in their connection with the Intellectual Operations.” The anticipations formed by Bacon, of that branch of modern logic which relates to Universal Grammar, do no less honour to his sagacity. “Grammar,” he observes, “is of two kinds, the one literary, the other philosophical. The former has for its object to trace the analogies running through the structure of a particular tongue, so as to facilitate its acquisition to a foreigner, or to enable him to speak it with correctness and purity. The latter directs the attention, not to the analogies which words bear to words, but to the analogies which words bear to things;” or, as he afterwards explains himself more clearly, “to language considered as the sensible portraiture or image of the mental processes.” In farther illustration of these hints, he takes notice of the lights which the different genius of different languages reflect on the characters and habits of those by whom they were respectively spoken. “Thus,” says he, “it is easy to perceive, that the Greeks were addicted to the culture of the arts, the Romans engrossed with the conduct of affairs; inasmuch, as the technical distinctions introduced in the progress of refinement require the aid of compounded words; while the real business of life stands in no need of so artificial a phraseology.” Ideas of this sort have, in the course of a very few years, already become common, and almost tritical; but how different was the case two centuries ago!
With these sound and enlarged views concerning the Philosophy of the Mind, it will not appear surprising to those who have attended to the slow and irregular advances of human reason, that Bacon should occasionally blend incidental remarks, savouring of the ha​bits of thinking prevalent in his time. A curious example of this occurs in the same chapter which contains his excellent definition or description of universal grammar. “This too,” he observes, “is worthy of notice, that the ancient languages were full of declensions, of cases, of conjugations, of tenses, and of other similar inflections; while the modern, almost entirely destitute of these, indolently accomplish the same purpose by the help of prepositions, and of auxiliary verbs. Whence,” he continues, “may be inferred (however we may flatter ourselves with the idea of our own superiority), that the human intellect was much more acute and subtile in ancient, than it now is in modern times.” How very unlike is this last reflection to the usual strain of Bacon’s writings! It seems, indeed, much more congenial to the philosophy of Mr Harris and of Lord Monboddo; and it has accordingly been sanctioned with the approbation of both these learned authors. If my memory does not deceive me, it is the only passage in Bacon’s works, which Lord Monboddo has anywhere condescended to quote.
These observations afford me a convenient opportunity for remarking the progress and diffusion of the philosophical spirit, since the beginning of the seventeenth century. In the short passage just cited from Bacon, there are involved no less than two capital errors, which are now almost universally ranked, by men of education, among the grossest prejudices of the multitude. The one, that the declensions and conjugations of the ancient languages, and the modern substitution in their place, of prepositions and auxiliary verbs, are, both of them, the deliberate and systematical contrivances of speculative grammarians; the other (still less analogous to Bacon’s general style of reasoning), that the faculties of man have declined, as the world has grown older. Both of these errors may be now said to have disappeared entirely. The latter, more particularly, must, to the rising generation, seem so absurd, that it almost requires an apology to have mentioned it. That the capacities of the human mind have been in all ages the same; and that the diversity of phenomena exhibited by our species, is the result merely of the different circumstances in which men are placed, has been long received as an incontrovertible logical maxim; or rather, such is the influence of early instruction, that we are apt to regard it as one of the most obvious suggestions of common sense. And yet, till about the time of Montesquieu, it was by no means so generally recognized by the learned, as to have a sensible influence on the fashionable tone of thinking over Europe. The application of this fundamental and leading idea to the natural or theoretical history of society in all its vari​ous aspects;—to the history of languages, of the arts, of the sciences, of laws, of government, of manners, and of religion,—is the peculiar glory of the latter half of the eighteenth century; and forms a characteristical feature in its philosophy, which even the imagination of Bacon was unable to foresee.
It would be endless to particularize the original suggestions thrown out by Bacon on topics connected with the science of Mind. The few passages of this sort already quoted, are produced merely as a specimen of the rest. They are by no means selected as the most important in his writings; but, as they happened to be those which had left the strongest impression on my memory, I thought them as likely as any other, to invite the curiosity of my readers to a careful examination of the rich mine from which they are extracted.
The Ethical disquisitions of Bacon are almost entirely of a practical nature. Of the two theoretical questions so much agitated, in both parts of this Island, during the eighteenth century, concerning the principle and the object of moral approbation, he has said nothing; but he has opened some new and interesting views with respect to the influence of custom and the formation of habits;—a most important article of moral philosophy, on which he has enlarged more ably and more usefully than any writer since Aristotle. Under the same head of Ethics may be mentioned the small volume to which he has given the title of Essays; the best known and the most popular of all his works. It is also one of those where the superiority of his genius appears to the greatest advantage; the novelty and depth of his reflections often receiving a strong relief from the triteness of his subject. It may be read from beginning to end in a few hours,—and yet, after the twentieth perusal, one seldom fails to remark in it something overlooked before. This, indeed, is a characteristic of all Bacon’s writings, and is only to be accounted for by the inexhaustible aliment they furnish to our own thoughts, and the sympathetic activity they impart to our torpid faculties.
The suggestions of Bacon for the improvement of Political Philosophy, exhibit as strong a contrast to the narrow systems of contemporary statesmen, as the Inductive Logic to that of the Schools. How profound and comprehensive are the views opened in the following passages, when compared with the scope of the celebrated treatise De Jure Belli et Pacis; a work which was first published about a year before Bacon’s death, and which continued, for a hundred and fifty years afterwards, to be regarded in all the Protestant universities of Europe as an inexhaustible treasure of moral and jurisprudential wisdom!
​“The ultimate object which legislators ought to have in view, and to which all their enactments and sanctions ought to be subservient, is, that the citizens may live happily. For this purpose, it is necessary that they should receive a religious and pious education; that they should be trained to good morals; that they should be secured from foreign enemies by proper military arrangements; that they should be guarded by an effectual police against seditions and private injuries; that they should be loyal to government, and obedient to magistrates; and finally, that they should abound in wealth, and in other national resources.”—“The science of such matters certainly belongs more particularly to the province of men who, by habits of public business, have been led to take a comprehensive survey of the social order; of the interests of the community at large; of the rules of natural equity; of the manners of nations; of the different forms of government; and who are thus prepared to reason concerning the wisdom of laws, both from considerations of justice and of policy. The great desideratum, accordingly, is, by investigating the principles of natural justice, and those of political expediency, to exhibit a theoretical model of legislation, which, while it serves as a standard for estimating the comparative excellence of municipal codes, may suggest hints for their correction and improvement, to such as have at heart the welfare of mankind.”
How precise the notion was that Bacon had formed of a philosophical system of jurisprudence (with which as a standard the municipal laws of different nations might be compared), appears from a remarkable expression, in which he mentions it as the proper business of those who might attempt to carry his plan into execution, to investigate those “leges legum, ex quibus informatio peti possit, quid in singulis legibus bene aut perperam positum aut constitutum sit.” I do not know if, in Bacon’s prophetic anticipa​tions of the future progress of physics, there be anything more characteristical, both of the grandeur and of the justness of his conceptions, than this short definition; more particularly, when we consider how widely Grotius, in a work professedly devoted to this very inquiry, was soon after to wander from the right path, in consequence of his vague and wavering idea of the aim of his researches.
The sagacity, however, displayed in these, and various other passages of a similar import, can by no means be duly appreciated, without attending, at the same time, to the cautious and temperate maxims so frequently inculcated by the author, on the subject of political innovation. “A stubborn retention of customs is a turbulent thing, not less than the introduction of new.”—“Time is the greatest innovator; shall we then not imitate time, which innovates so silently as to mock the sense?” Nearly connected with these aphorisms, are the profound reflections in the first book De Augmentis Scientiarum, on the necessity of accommodating every new institution to the character and circumstances of the people for whom it is intended; and on the peculiar danger which literary men run of overlooking this consideration, from the familiar acquaintance they acquire, in the course of their early studies, with the ideas and sentiments of the ancient classics.
The remark of Bacon on the systematical policy of Henry VII. was manifestly suggested by the same train of thinking. “His laws (whoso marks them well) were deep and not vulgar; not made on the spur of a particular occasion for the present, but out of providence for the future; to make the estate of his people still more and more happy, after the manner of the legislators in ancient and heroic times.” How far this noble eulogy was merited, either by the legislators of antiquity, or by the modern Prince on whom Bacon has bestowed it, is a question of little moment. I quote it merely on account of the important philosophical distinction which it indirectly marks, between “deep and vulgar laws;” the former invariably aiming to accomplish their end, not by giving any sudden shock to the feelings and interests of the existing generation, but by allowing to natural causes time and opportunity to operate; and by removing those artificial ob​stacles which check the progressive tendencies of society. It is probable, that, on this occasion, Bacon had an eye more particularly to the memorable statute of alienation; to the effects of which (whatever were the motives of its author) the above description certainly applies in an eminent degree.
After all, however, it must be acknowledged, that it is rather in his general views and maxims, than in the details of his political theories, that Bacon’s sagacity appears to advantage. His notions with respect to commercial policy seem to have been more peculiarly erroneous; originating in an overweening opinion of the efficacy of law, in matters where natural causes ought to be allowed a free operation. It is observed by Mr Hume, that the statutes of Henry VII. relating to the police of his kingdom, are generally contrived with more judgment than his commercial regulations. The same writer adds, that “the more simple ideas of order and equity are sufficient to guide a legislator in everything that regards the internal administration of justice; but that the principles of commerce are much more complicated, and require long experience and deep reflection to be well understood in any state. The real consequence is there often contrary to first appearances. No wonder, that, during the reign of Henry VII. these matters were frequently mistaken; and it may safely be affirmed, that, even in the age of Lord Bacon, very imperfect and erroneous ideas were formed on that subject.”
The instances mentioned by Hume in confirmation of these general remarks, are peculiarly gratifying to those who have a pleasure in tracing the slow but certain progress of reason and liberality. “During the reign,” says he, “of Henry VII. it was prohibited to export horses, as if that exportation did not encourage the breed, and make them more plentiful in the kingdom. Prices were also affixed to woollen cloths, to caps and hats, and the wages of labourers were regulated by law. It is evident, that these matters ought always to be left free, and be entrusted to the common course of business and commerce.”—“For a like reason,” the historian continues, “the law enacted against inclosures, and for the keeping up of farm-houses, scarcely deserves the praises bestowed on it by Lord Bacon. If husbandmen understand agriculture, and have a ready vent for their commodities, we need not dread a diminution of the people employed in the country. During a century and a half after this period, there was a frequent renewal of laws and edicts against depopulation; whence we may infer, that none of them were ever executed. The natural course of improvement at last provided a remedy.”
These acute and decisive strictures on the impolicy of some laws highly applauded by Bacon, while they strongly illustrate the narrow and mistaken views in political economy entertained by the wisest statesmen and philosophers two centuries ago, afford, at the same ​time, a proof of the general diffusion which has since taken place among the people of Great Britain, of juster and more enlightened opinions on this important branch of legislation. Wherever such doctrines find their way into the page of history, it may be safely inferred, that the public mind is not indisposed to give them a welcome reception.
The ideas of Bacon concerning the education of youth, were such as might be expected from a philosophical statesman. On the conduct of education in general, with a view to the developement and improvement of the intellectual character, he has suggested various useful hints in different parts of his works; but what I wish chiefly to remark at present is, the paramount importance which he has attached to the education of the people,—comparing {as he has repeatedly done) the effects of early culture on the understanding and the heart, to the abundant harvest which rewards the diligent husbandman for the toils of the spring. To this analogy he seems to have been particularly anxious to attract the attention of his readers, by bestowing on education the title of the Georgics of the Mind; identifying, by a happy and impressive metaphor, the two proudest functions entrusted to the legislator,—the encouragement of agricultural industry, and the care of national instruction. In both instances, the legislator exerts a power which is literally productive or creative; compelling, in the one case, the unprofitable desert to pour forth its latent riches; and in the other, vivifying the dormant seeds of genius and virtue, and redeeming from the neglected wastes of human intellect, a new and unexpected accession to the common inheritance of mankind.
When from such speculations as these we descend to the treatise De Jure Belli et Pacis, the contrast is mortifying indeed. And yet, so much better suited were the talents and accomplishments of Grotius to the taste, not only of his contemporaries, but of their remote descendants, that, while the merits of Bacon failed, for a century and a half, to command the general admiration of Europe, Grotius continued, even in our British universities, the acknowledged Oracle of Jurisprudence and of Ethics, till long after the death of Montesquieu. Nor was Bacon himself unapprised of the slow growth of his posthumous fame. No writer seems ever to have felt more deeply, that he properly belonged to a later and more enlightened age;—a sentiment which he has pathetically expressed in that clause ​of his testament, where he “bequeaths his name to posterity, after some generations shall be past.”
Unbounded, however, as the reputation of Grotius was on the Continent, even before his own death, it was not till many years after the publication of the treatise De Jure Belli et Pacis, that the science of natural jurisprudence became, in this Island, an object of much attention, even to the learned. In order, therefore, to give to the sequel of this section some degree of continuity, I shall reserve my observations on Grotius and his successors, till I shall have finished all that I think it necessary to mention further, with respect to the literature of our own country, prior to the appearance of Mr Locke’s Essay.
The rapid advancement of intellectual cultivation in England, between the years 1588 and 1640 (a period of almost uninterrupted peace), has been remarked by Mr Fox. “The general improvement,” he observes, “in all arts of civil life, and above all, the astonishing progress of literature, are the most striking among the general features of that period; and are in themselves causes sufficient to produce effects of the utmost importance. A country whose language was enriched by the works of Hooker, Raleigh, and Bacon, could not but experience a sensible change in its manners, and in its style of thinking; and even to speak the same language in which Spencer and Shakespeare had written, seemed a sufficient plea to rescue the Commons of England from the appellation of Brutes, with which Henry the Eighth had addressed them.”—The remark is equally just and refined. It is by the mediation of an improving language, that the progress of the mind is chiefly continued from one generation to another; and that the acquirements of the enlightened few are insensibly imparted to the many. Whatever tends to diminish the ambiguities of speech, or to fix, with more logical precision, the import of general terms;—above all, whatever tends to embody, in popular forms of expression, the ideas and feelings of the wise and good, augments the natural powers of the human understanding, and enables the succeeding race to start from a higher ground than was occupied by their fathers. The remark applies with peculiar force to the study of the Mind itself; a study, where the chief source of error is the imperfection of words; and where every improvement on this great instrument of thought may be justly regarded in the light of a discovery.
​In the foregoing list of illustrious names, Mr Fox has, with much propriety, connected those of Bacon and Raleigh; two men, who, notwithstanding the diversity of their professional pursuits, and the strong constrast of their characters, exhibit, nevertheless, in their capacity of authors, some striking features of resemblance. Both of them owed to the force of their own minds, their emancipation from the fetters of the schools; both were eminently distinguished above their contemporaries, by the originality and enlargement of their philosophical views; and both divide, with the venerable Hooker, the glory of exemplifying to their yet unpolished countrymen, the richness, variety, and grace, which might be lent to the English idiom, by the hand of a master.
It is not improbable that Mr Fox might have included the name of Hobbes in the same enumeration, had he not been prevented by an aversion to his slavish principles of government, and by his general disrelish for metaphysical theories. As a writer, Hobbes unquestionably ranks high among the older English classics; and is so peculiarly distinguished by the simplicity and ease of his manner, that one would naturally have expected from Mr Fox’s characteristical taste, that he would have relished his style still more than that of Bacon or of Raleigh.—It is with the philosophical merits, however, of Hobbes, that we ​are alone concerned at present; and, in this point of view, what a space is filled in the subsequent history of our domestic literature, by his own works, and by those of his innumerable opponents! Little else, indeed, but the systems which he published, and the controversies which they provoked, occurs, during the interval between Bacon and Locke, to mark the progress of English Philosophy, either in the study of the Mind, or in the kindred researches of Ethical and Political Science.
Of the few and comparatively trifling exceptions to this remark, furnished by the metaphysical tracts of Glanville, of Henry More, and of John Smith, I must delay taking notice, till some account shall be given of the Cartesian philosophy; to which their most interesting discussions have a constant reference, either in the way of comment or refutation.
Hobbes.
“The philosopher of Malmesbury,” says Dr Warburton, “was the terror of the last age, as Tindall and Collins are of this. The press sweat with controversy; and every young churchman militant, would try his arms in thundering on Hobbes’s steel cap.” Nor was the opposition to Hobbes confined to the clerical order, or to the controversialists of his own times. The most eminent moralists and politicians of the eighteenth century may be ranked in the number of his antagonists, and even at the present moment, scarcely does there appear a new publication on Ethics or Jurisprudence, where a refutation of Hobbism is not to be found.
The period when Hobbes began his literary career, as well as the principal incidents of his life, were, in a singular degree, favourable to a mind like his; impatient of the yoke of authority, and ambitious to attract attention, if not by solid and useful discoveries, at least by an ingenious defence of paradoxical tenets. After a residence of five years at Oxford, ​and a very extensive tour through France and Italy, he had the good fortune, upon his return to England, to be admitted into the intimacy and confidence of Lord Bacon; a circumstance which, we may presume, contributed not a little to encourage that bold spirit of inquiry, and that aversion to scholastic learning, which characterize his writings. Happy, if he had, at the same time, imbibed some portion of that love of truth and zeal for the advancement of knowledge, which seem to have been Bacon’s ruling passions! But such was the obstinacy of his temper, and his overweening self-conceit, that, instead of co-operating with Bacon in the execution of his magnificent design, he resolved to rear, on a foundation exclusively his own, a complete structure both of Moral and Physical science; disdaining to avail himself even of the materials collected by his predecessors, and treating the experimentarian philosophers as objects only of contempt and ridicule!
In the political writings of Hobbes, we may perceive the influence also of other motives. From his earliest years, he seems to have been decidedly hostile to all the forms of popular government; and it is said to have been with the design of impressing his countrymen with a just sense of the disorders incident to democratical establishments, that he published, in 1618, an English translation of Thucydides. In these opinions he was more and more confirmed by the events he afterwards witnessed in England; the fatal consequences of which he early foresaw with so much alarm, that, in 1640, he withdrew from the approaching storm, to enjoy the society of his philosophical friends at Paris. It was here he wrote his book De Cive, a few copies of which were printed, and privately circulated in 1642. The same work was afterwards given to the public, with material corrections and improvements, in 1647, when the author’s attachment to the royal cause being strengthened by his personal connection with the exiled King, he thought it incumbent on him to stand forth avowedly as an advocate for those principles which he had long professed. The great object of this performance was to strengthen the hands of sovereigns against the rising spirit of democracy, by arming them with the weapons of a new philosophy.
The fundamental doctrines inculcated in the political works of Hobbes are contained in the following propositions. I recapitulate them here, not on their own account, but to prepare the way for some remarks which I mean afterwards to offer on the coincidence between the principles of Hobbes and those of Locke. In their practical conclusions, indeed, with respect to the rights and duties of citizens, the two writers differ widely; but it is curious to observe how very nearly they set out from the same hypothetical assumptions.
​All men are by nature equal; and, prior to government, they had all an equal right to enjoy the good things of this world. Man, too, is (according to Hobbes) by nature a solitary and purely selfish animal; the social union being entirely an interested league, suggested by prudential views of personal advantage. The necessary consequence is, that a state of nature must be a state of perpetual warfare, in which no individual has any other means of safety than his own strength or ingenuity; and in which there is no room for regular industry, because no secure enjoyment of its fruits. In confirmation of this view of the origin of society, Hobbes appeals to facts falling daily within the circle of our own experience. “Does not a man (he asks) when taking a journey, arm himself, and seek to go well accompanied? When going to sleep, does he not lock his doors? Nay, even in his own house, does he not lock his chests? Does he not there as much accuse mankind by his actions, as I do by my words?” An additional argument to the same purpose may, according to some later Hobbists, be derived from the instinctive aversion of infants for strangers; and from the apprehension which (it is alleged) every person feels, when he hears the tread of an unknown foot in the dark.
For the sake of peace and security, it is necessary that each individual should surrender a part of his natural right, and be contented with such a share of liberty as he is willing to allow to others; or, to use Hobbes’s own language, “every man must divest himself of the right he has to all things by nature; the right of all men to all things being in effect no better than if no man had a right to any thing.” In consequence of this transference of natural rights to an individual, or to a body of individuals, the multitude become one person, under the name of a State or Republic, by which person the common will and power are exercised for the common defence. The ruling power cannot be withdrawn from those to whom it has been committed; nor can they be punished for misgovernment. The interpretation of the laws is to be sought, not from the comments of philosophers, but from the authority of the ruler; otherwise society would every moment be in danger of resolving itself into the discordant elements of which it was at first composed. The will of the magistrate, therefore, is to be regarded as the ultimate standard of right and wrong, and his voice to be listened to by every citizen as the voice of conscience.
Not many years afterwards, Hobbes pushed the argument for the absolute power of princes still further, in a work to which he gave the name of Leviathan. Under ​this appellation he means the body politic; insinuating, that man is an untameable beast of prey, and that government is the strong chain by which he is kept from mischief. The fundamental principles here maintained are the same as in the book De Cive; but as it inveighs more particularly against ecclesiastical tyranny, with the view of subjecting the consciences of men to the civil authority, it lost the author the favour of some powerful protectors he had hitherto enjoyed among the English divines who attended Charles II. im France; and he even found it convenient to quit that kingdom, and to return to England, where Cromwell (to whose government his political tenets were now as favourable as they were meant to be to the royal claims) suffered him to remain unmolested. The same circumstances operated to his disadvantage after the Restoration, and obliged the King, who always retained for him a very strong attachment, to confer his marks of favour on him with the utmost reserve and circumspection.
The details which I have entered into, with respect to the history of Hobbes’s political writings, will be found, by those who may peruse them, to throw much light on the author’s reasonings. Indeed, it is only by thus considering them in their connection with the circumstances of the times, and the fortunes of the writer, that a just notion can be formed of their spirit and tendency.
The ethical principles of Hobbes are so completely interwoven with his political system, that all which has been said of the one may be applied to the other. It is very remarkable, that Descartes should have thought so highly of the former, as to pronounce Hobbes to be “a much greater master of morality than of metaphysics;” a judgment which is of itself sufficient to mark the very low state of ethical science in France about the middle of the seventeenth century. Mr Addison, on the other hand, gives a decided preference (among ail the books written by Hobbes) to his Treatise on Human Nature; and to his opinion on this point I most implicitly subscribe; including, however, in the same commendation, some of his other philosophical essays on similar topics. They are the only part of his works which it is possible now to read with any interest; and they everywhere evince in their author, even when he thinks most unsoundly himself, that power of setting his reader a-thinking, which is one of the most unequivocal marks of original genius. They have plainly been studied with the utmost care both by Locke and Hume. To the former they have suggested some of his most important observations on the Association of Ideas, as well as much of the sophistry displayed in the first book of his Essay, on the Origin of our Knowledge, and on the factitious nature of our moral principles; to the latter (among a variety of hints of less consequence), ​his theory concerning the nature of those established connections among physical events, which it is the business of the natural philosopher to ascertain, and the substance of his argument against the scholastic doctrine of general conceptions. It is from the works of Hobbes, too, that our later Necessitarians have borrowed the most formidable of those weapons with which they have combated the doctrine of moral liberty; and from the same source has been derived the leading idea which runs through the philological materialism of Mr Horne Tooke. It is probable, indeed, that this last author borrowed it, at second-hand, from a hint in Locke’s Essay; but it is repeatedly stated by Hobbes, in the most explicit and confident terms. Of this idea, (than which, in point of fact, nothing can be imagined more puerile and unsound,) Mr Tooke’s etymologies, when he applies them to the solution of metaphysical questions, are little more than an ingenious expansion, adapted and levelled to the comprehension of the multitude.
The speculations of Hobbes, however, concerning the theory of the understanding, do not seem to have been nearly so much attended to during his own life, as some of his other doctrines, which, having a more immediate reference to human affairs, were better adapted to the unsettled and revolutionary spirit of the times. It is by these doctrines, chiefly, that his name has since become so memorable in the annals of modern literature; and although they now derive their whole interest from the extraordinary combination they exhibit of acuteness and subtlety with a dead-palsy in the powers of taste and of moral sensibility, yet they will be found, on an attentive examination, to have had a far more extensive influence on the subsequent history both of political and of ethical science, than any other publication of the same period.
Antagonists of Hobbes.
Cudworth was one of the first who successfully combated this new philosophy. As Hobbes, in the frenzy of his political zeal, had been led to sacrifice wantonly all the prin​ciples of religion and morality to the establishment of his conclusions, his works not only gave offence to the friends of liberty, but excited a general alarm among all sound moralists. His doctrine, in particular, that there is no natural distinction between Right and Wrong, and that these are dependent on the arbitrary will of the civil magistrate, was so obviously subversive of all the commonly received ideas concerning the moral constitution of human nature, that it became indispensably necessary, either to expose the sophistry of the attempt, or to admit, with Hobbes, that man is a beast of prey, incapable of being governed by any motives but fear, and the desire of self-preservation.
Between some of these tenets of the courtly Hobbists, and those inculcated by the Cromwellian Antinomians, there was a very extraordinary and unfortunate coincidence; the latter insisting, that, in expectation of Christ’s second coming, “the obligations of morality and natural law were suspended; and that the elect, guided by an internal principle, more perfect and divine, were superior to the beggarly elements of justice and humanity.” It was the object of Cudworth to vindicate, against the assaults of both parties, the immutability of moral distinctions.
In the prosecution of his very able argument on this subject, Cudworth displays a rich store of enlightened and choice erudition, penetrated throughout with a peculiar vein of sobered and subdued Platonism, from whence some German systems, which have attracted no small notice in our own times, will be found, when stripped of their deep neological disguise, to have borrowed their most valuable materials.
Another coincidence between the Hobbists and the Antinomians, may be remarked in ​their common zeal for the scheme of necessity; which both of them stated in such a way is to be equally inconsistent with the moral agency of man, and with the moral attributes of God. The strongest of all presumptions against this scheme is afforded by the other tenets with which it is almost universally combined; and accordingly, it was very shrewdly observed by Cudworth, that the licentious system which flourished in his time (under which title, I presume, he comprehended the immoral tenets of the fanatics, as well as of the Hobbists), “grew up from the doctrine of the fatal necessity of all actions and events, as from its proper root.” The unsettled, and, at the same time, disputatious period during which Cudworth lived, afforded him peculiarly favourable opportunities of judging from experience, of the practical tendency of this metaphysical dogma; and the result of his observations deserves the serious attention of those who may be disposed to regard it in the light of a fair and harmless theme for the display of controversial subtilty. To argue, in this manner, against a speculative principle from its palpable effects, is not always so illogical as some authors have supposed. “You repeat to me incessantly,” says Rousseau to one of his correspondents, “that truth can never be injurious to the world. I myself believe so as firmly as you do; and it is for this very reason I am satisfied that your proposition is false.”
But the principal importance of Cudworth, as an ethical writer, arises from the influence of his argument concerning the immutability of right and wrong on the various theories of ​morals which appeared in the course of the eighteenth century. To this argument may, more particularly, be traced the origin of the celebrated question, Whether the principle of moral approbation is to be ultimately resolved into Reason, or into Sentiment?—a question, which has furnished the chief ground of difference between the systems of Cudworth and of Clarke, on the one hand; and those of Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, Hume, and Smith, on the other. The remarks which I have to offer on this controversy must evidently be delayed, till the writings of these more modern authors shall fall under review.
The Intellectual System of Cudworth, embraces a field much wider than his treatise of Immutable Morality. The latter is particularly directed against the ethical doctrines of Hobbes, and of the Antinomians; but the former aspires to tear up by the roots all the principles, both physical and metaphysical, of the Epicurean philosophy. It is a work, certainly, which reflects much honour on the talents of the author, and still more on the boundless extent of his learning; but it is so ill suited to the taste of the present age, that, since the time of Mr Harris and Dr Price, I scarcely recollect the slightest reference to it in the writings of our British metaphysicians. Of its faults (beside the general disposition of the author to discuss questions placed altogether beyond the reach of our faculties), the most prominent is the wild hypothesis of a plastic nature; or, in other words, “of a vital and spiritual, hut unintelligent and necessary agent, created by the Deity for the execution of his purposes.” Notwithstanding, however, these, and many other abatements of its merits, the Intellectual System will for ever remain a precious mine of information to those whose curiosity may lead them to study the spirit of the ancient theories; and to it we may justly apply what Leibnitz has somewhere said, with far less reason, of the works of the schoolmen, “Scholasticos agnosco abundare ineptiis; sed aurum est in illo cœno.”
Before dismissing the doctrines of Hobbes, it may be worth while to remark, that all his leading principles are traced by Cudworth to the remains of the ancient sceptics, by some of whom, as well as by Hobbes, they seem to have been adopted from a wish to flatter the uncontrolled passions of sovereigns. Not that I am disposed to call in question the originality of Hobbes; for it appears, from the testimony of all his friends, that he had much less pleasure in reading than in thinking. “If I had read,” he was accustomed to say, “as much as some others, I should have been as ignorant as they are.” But similar political circumstances invariably reproduce similar philosophical theories; and it is one of the numer​ous disadvantages attending an inventive mind, not properly furnished with acquired information, to be continually liable to a waste of its powers on subjects previously exhausted.
The sudden tide of licentiousness, both in principles and in practice, which burst into this island at the moment of the Restoration, conspired with the paradoxes of Hobbes, and with the no less dangerous errors recently propagated among the people by their religious instructors, to turn the thoughts of sober and speculative men towards ethical disquisitions. The established clergy assumed a higher tone than before in their sermons; sometimes employing them in combating that Epicurean and Machiavellian philosophy which was then fashionable at court, and which may be always suspected to form the secret creed of the enemies of civil and religious liberty;—on other occasions, to overwhelm, with the united force of argument and learning, the extravagancies by which the ignorant enthusiasts of the preceding period had exposed Christianity itself to the scoffs of their libertine opponents. Among the divines who appeared at this era, it is impossible to pass over in silence the name of Barrow, whose theological works (adorned throughout by classical erudition, and by a vigorous, though unpolished eloquence), exhibit, in every page, marks of the same inventive genius which, in mathematics, has secured to him a rank second alone to that of Newton. As a writer, he is equally distinguished by the redundancy of his matter, and by the pregnant brevity of his expression; but what more peculiarly characterizes his manner, is a certain air of powerful and of conscious facility in the execution of whatever he undertakes. Whether the subject be mathematical, metaphysical, or theological, he seems always to bring to it a mind which feels itself superior to the occasion; and which, in contending with the greatest difficulties, “puts forth but half its strength.” He has somewhere spoken of his Lectiones Mathematicæ (which it may, in passing, be remarked, display metaphysical talents of the highest order), as extemporaneous effusions of his pen; and I have no doubt that the same epithet is still more literally applicable to his pulpit discourses. It is, indeed, only thus we can account for the variety and extent of his voluminous remains, when we recollect that the author died at the age of forty-six.
To the extreme rapidity with which Barrow committed his thoughts to writing, I am inclined to ascribe the hasty and not altogether consistent opinions which he has hazarded on ​some important topics. I shall confine myself to a single example, which I select in preference to others, as it bears directly on the most interesting of all questions connected with the theory of morals. “If we scan,” says he, “the particular nature, and search into the original causes of the several kinds of naughty dispositions in our souls, and of miscarriages in our lives, we shall find inordinate self-love to be a main ingredient, and a common source of them all; so that a divine of great name had some reason to affirm,—that original sin (or that innate distemper from which men generally become so very prone to evil, and averse to good), doth consist in self-love, disposing us to all kinds of irregularity and excess.” In another passage, the same author expresses himself thus: “Reason dictateth and prescribeth to us, that we should have a sober regard to our true good and welfare; to our best interests and solid content; to that which (all things being rightly stated, considered and computed) will, in the final event, prove most beneficial and satisfactory to us; a self-love working in prosecution of such things, common sense cannot but allow and approve.”
Of these two opposite and irreconcilable opinions, the latter is incomparably the least wide of the truth; and accordingly Mr Locke, and his innumerable followers, both in England and on the Continent, have maintained, that virtue and an enlightened self-love are one and the same. I shall afterwards find a more convenient opportunity for stating some objections to the latter doctrine, as well as to the former. I have quoted the two passages here, merely to shew the very little attention that had been paid, at the era in question, to ethical science, by one of the most learned and profound divines of his age. This is the more remarkable, as his works everywhere inculcate the purest lessons of practical morality, and evince a singular acuteness and justness of eye in the observation of human character. Whoever compares the views of Barrow, when he touches on the theory of morals, with those opened about fifty years afterwards by Dr Butler, in his Discourses on Human Nature, will be abundantly satisfied, that, in this science, as well as in others, the progress of the philosophical spirit during the intervening period was not inconsiderable.
The name of Wilkins, (although he too wrote with some reputation against the Epicureans of his day), is now remembered chiefly in consequence of his treatises concerning a universal language and a real character. Of these treatises, I shall hereafter have occa​sion to take some notice, under a different article. With all the ingenuity displayed in them, they cannot be considered as accessions of much value to science; and the long period since elapsed, during which no attempt has been made to turn them to any practical use, affords of itself no slight presumption against the solidity of the project.
A few years before the death of Hobbes, Dr Cumberland (afterwards Bishop of Peterborough) published a book, entitled, De Legibus Naturae, Disquisitio Philosophica; the principal aim of which was to confirm and illustrate, in opposition to Hobbes, the conclusions of Grotius, concerning Natural Law. The work is executed with ability, and discovers juster views of the object of moral science, than any modern system that had yet appeared; the author resting the strength of his argument, not, as Grotius had done, on an accumulation of authorities, but on the principles of the human frame, and the mutual relations of the human race. The circumstance, however, which chiefly entitles this publication to our notice is, that it seems to have been the earliest on the subject which attracted, in any considerable degree, the attention of English scholars. From this time, the writings of Grotius and of Puffendorff began to be generally studied, and soon after made their way into the Universities. In Scotland, the impression produced by them was more peculiarly remarkable. They were everywhere adopted as the best manuals of ethical and of political instruction that could be put into the hands of students; and gradually contributed to form that memorable school, from whence so many Philosophers and Philosophical Historians were afterwards to proceed.
From the writings of Hobbes to those of Locke, the transition is easy and obvious; but, before prosecuting farther the history of philosophy in England, it will be proper to turn our attention to its progress abroad, since the period at which this section commences. In ​the first place, however, I shall add a few miscellaneous remarks on some important events which occurred in this country during the lifetime of Hobbes, and of which his extraordinary longevity prevented me sooner from taking notice.
Among these events, that which is most immediately connected with our present subject, is the establishment of the Royal Society of London in 1662, which was followed a few years afterwards by that of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris. The professed object of both institutions was the improvement of Experimental Knowledge, and of the auxiliary science of Mathematics; but their influence on the general progress of human reason has been far greater than could possibly have been foreseen at the moment of their foundation. On the happy effects resulting from them in this respect, La Place has introduced some just reflections in his System of the World, which, as they discover more originality of thought than he commonly displays, when he ventures to step beyond the circumference of his own magic circle, I shall quote, in a literal translation of his words.
“The chief advantage of learned societies, is the philosophical spirit to which they may be expected to give birth, and which they cannot fail to diffuse over all the various pursuits of the nations among whom they are established. The insulated scholar may without dread abandon himself to the spirit of system; he hears the voice of contradiction only from afar. But in a learned society, the collision of systematic opinions soon terminates in their common destruction; while the desire of mutual conviction creates among the members a tacit compact, to admit nothing but the results of observation, or the conclusions of mathematical reasoning. Accordingly, experience has shewn, how much these establishments have contributed, since their origin, to the spread of true philosophy. By setting the example of submitting every thing to the examination of a severe logic, they have dissipated the prejudices which had too long reigned in the sciences; and which the strongest minds of the preceding centuries had not been able to resist. They have constantly opposed to empiricism a mass of knowledge, against which the errors adopted by the vulgar, with an enthusiasm which, in former times, would have perpetuated their empire, have spent their force in vain. In a word, it has been in their bosoms that those grand theories have been con​ceived, which, although far exalted by their generality above the reach of the multitude, are for this very reason entitled to special encouragement, from their innumerable applications to the phenomena of nature, and to the practice of the arts.”
In confirmation of these judicious remarks, it may be farther observed, that nothing could have been more happily imagined than the establishment of learned corporations for correcting those prejudices which (under the significant title of Idola Specus,) Bacon has described as incident to the retired student. While these idols of the den maintain their authority, the cultivation of the philosophical spirit is impossible; or rather, it is in a renunciation of this idolatry that the philosophical spirit essentially consists. It was accordingly in this great school of the learned world, that the characters of Bacon, Descartes, Leibnitz, and Locke were formed; the four individuals who have contributed the most to diffuse the philosophical spirit over Europe. The remark applies more peculiarly to Bacon, who first pointed out the inconveniences to be apprehended from a minute and mechanical subdivision of literary labour; and anticipated the advantages to be expected from the institution, of learned academies, in enlarging the field of scientific curiosity, and the correspondent grasp of the emancipated mind. For accomplishing this object, what means so effectual as habits of daily intercourse with men whose pursuits are different from our own; and that expanded knowledge, both of man and of nature, of which such an intercourse must necessarily be productive!
Another event which operated still more forcibly and universally on the intellectual character of our countrymen, was the civil war which began in 1640, and which ultimately terminated in the usurpation of Cromwell. It is observed by Mr Hume, that “the prevalence of democratical principles, under the Commonwealth, engaged the country gentlemen to bind their sons apprentices to merchants; and that commerce has ever since been more honourable in England, than in any other European kingdom.” “The higher and the lower ranks (as a later writer has remarked) were thus brought closer together, and all of them inspired with an activity and vigour that, in former ages, had no example.”
To this combination of the pursuits of trade, with the advantages of a liberal education may be ascribed the great multitude of ingenious and enlightened speculations on commerce, ​and on the other branches of naticnal industry, which issued from the press, in the short interval between the Restoration and the Revolution; an interval during which the sudden and immense extension of the trade of England, and the corresponding rise of the commercial interest, must have presented a spectacle peculiarly calculated to awaken the curiosity of inquisitive observers. It is a very remarkable circumstance with respect to these economical researches, which now engage so much of the attention both of statesmen and of philosophers, that they are altogether of modern origin. “There is scarcely,” says Mr Hume, “any ancient writer on politics who has made mention of trade; nor was it ever considered as an affair of state till the seventecuth century.”—The work of the celebrated John de Witt, entitled, “The true interest and political maxims of the republic of Holland and West Friesland,” is the earliest publication of any note, in which commerce is treated of as an object of national and political concern, in opposition to the partial interests of corporations and of monopolists.
Of the English publications to which I have just alluded, the greater part consists of anonymous pamphlets, now only to be met with in the collections of the curious. A few bear the names of eminent English merchants. I shall have occasion to refer to them more particularly afterwards, when I come to speak of the writings of Smith, Quesnay, and Turgot. At present, I shall only observe, that, in these fugitive and now neglected tracts, are to be found the first rudiments of that science of Political Economy which is justly considered as the boast of the present age; and which, although the aid of learning and philosophy was necessary to rear it to maturity, may be justly said to have had its cradle in the Royal Exchange of London.
Mr Locke was one of the first retired theorists (and this singular feature in his history has not been sufficiently attended to by his biographers), who condescended to treat of trade as an object of liberal study. Notwithstanding the manifold errors into which he fell in the course of his reasonings concerning it, it may be fairly questioned, if he has anywhere else given greater proofs, either of the vigour or of the originality of his genius. But the name of Locke reminds me, that it is now time to interrupt these national details; and to turn our attention to the progress of science on the Continent, since the times of Bodinus and of Campanella.
* ↑ Born 1561, died 1626.
* ↑ Discourse delivered at the opening of the Royal Academy, January 2, 1769.
* ↑ “Cum mundus sensibilis sit anima rationali dignitate inferior, videtur Poësis hæc humanæ naturæ largiri quæ historia denegat; atque animo umbris rerum utcunque satisfacere, cum solida haberi non possint. Si quis enim rem acutius introspiciat, firmum ex Poësi sumitur argumentum, magnitudinem rerum, magis ilustrem, ordinem magis perfectum, et varietatem magis pulchram, animæ humanæ complacere, quam in natura ipsa, post lapsum, reperiri ullo modo possit. Quapropter, cum res gestæ et eventus, qui veræ historiæ subjiciuntur, non sint ejus amplitudinis, in qua anima humana sibi satisfaciat, præsto est Poësis, quæ facta magis heroica confingat. Cum historia vera successus rerum, minime pro meritis virtutum et scelerum narret, corrigit eam Poësis, et exitus, et fortunas, secundum merita, et ex lege Nemeseos, exhibet. Cum historia vera obvia rerum satietate et similitudine, animæ humanæ fastidio sit, reficit eam Poësis, inexpectata, et varia, et vicissitudinum plena canens. Adeo ut Poësis ista non solum ad delectationem, sed ad animi magnitudinem, et ad mores conferat.” (De Aug. Scient. Lib. ii. cap. xiii.)
* ↑ To this branch of the philosophy of mind, Bacon gives the title of Doctrina de fædere, sive de communi vinculo animæ et corporis. (De Aug. Scient. Lib. iv. cap. i) Under this article, he mentions, among other desiderata, an inquiry (which he recommends to physicians) concerning the influence of imagination over the body. His own words are very remarkable; more particularly, the clause in which he remarks the effect of fixing and concentrating the attention, in giving to ideal objects the power of realities over the belief. “Ad aliud quippiam, quod huc pertinet, parce admodum, nec pro rei subtilitate, vel utilitate, inquisitum est; quatenus scilicet ipsa imaginatio animæ vel cogitatio perquam fixa, et veluti in fidem quandam exaltata, valeat ad immutandum corpus imaginantis.” (Ibid.) He suggests also, as a curious problem, to ascertain how far it is possible to fortify and exalt the imagination; and by what means this may most effectually be done. The class of facts here alluded to, are manifestly of the same description with those to which the attention of philosophers has been lately called by the pretensions of Mesmer and of Perkins: “Atque huic conjuncta est disquisitio, quomodo imaginatio intendi et fortificari possit? Quippe, si imaginatio fortis tantarum sit virium, operæ pretium fuerit nosse, quibus modis eam exaltari, et se ipsa majorem fieri detur? Atque hic oblique, nec minus periculose se insinuat palliatio quædam et defensio maximæ partis Magiæ Ceremonialis.” &c. &c. De Aug. Scient. Lib. iv. cap. iii.
* ↑ Notwithstanding the extravagance of Spinoza’s own philosophical creed, he is one of the very few among Bacon’s successors, who seem to have been fully aware of the justness, importance, and originality of the method pointed out in the Novum Organon for the study of the Mind. “Ad hæc intelligenda, non est opus naturam mentis cognoscere, sed sufficit, mentis sive perceptionum historiolam concinnare modo illo quo Verulamius docet.” Spin. Epist. 42. In order to comprehend the whole merit of this remark, it is necessary to know that, according to the Cartesian phraseology, which is here adopted by Spinoza, the word perception is a general term, equally applicable to all the intellectual operations. The words of Descartes himself are these: “Omnes modi cogitandi, quos in nobis experimur, ad duos generales referri possunt: quorum unus est, perceptio, sive operatio intellectus; alius verò, volitio, sive operatio voluntatis. Nam sentire, imaginari, et pure intelligere, sunt tantum diversi modi percipiendi; ut et cupere, aversari, affirmare, negare, dubitare, sunt diversi modi volendi.” Princ. Phil. Pars I. § 32.
* ↑ De Aug. Scient. Lib. vi. cap. i.
* ↑ Ibid.
* ↑ De Aug. Scient. Lib. vi. cap. i.
* ↑ De Aug. Scient. Lib. vii. cap. iii.
* ↑ Exemplum Tractatus de Fontibus Juris, Aphor. 5. This enumeration of the different objects of law approaches very nearly to Mr Smith’s ideas on the same subject, as expressed by himself in the concluding sentence of his Theory of Moral Sentiments. “In another Discourse, I shall endeavour to give an account of the general principles of law and government, and of the different revolutions they have undergone in the different ages and periods of society; not only in what concerns justice, but in what concerns police, revenue, and arms, and whatever else is the object of law.”
* ↑ De Aug. Scient. Lib. viii. cap. iii.
* ↑ De Fontibus Juris, Aphor. 6.From the preface to a small tract of Bacon’s, entitled The Elements of the Common Laws of England, (written while he was Solicitor-General to Queen Elizabeth), we learn, that the phrase legum leges had been previously used by some “great Civilian.” To what civilian Bacon here alludes, I know not; but, whoever he was, I doubt much if he annexed to it the comprehensive and philosophical meaning, so precisely explained in the above definition. Bacon himself, when he wrote his Tract on the Common Laws, does not seem to have yet risen to this vantage-ground of Universal Jurisprudence. His great object (he tells us) was “to collect the rules and grounds dispersed throughout the body of the same laws, in order to see more profoundly into the reason of such judgments and ruled cases, and thereby to make more use of them for the decision of other cases more doubtful; so that the uncertainty of law, which is the principal and most just challenge that is made to the laws of our nation at this time, will, by this new strength laid to the foundation, be somewhat the more settled and corrected.” In this passage, no reference whatever is made to the Universal Justice spoken of in the aphorisms de Fontibus Juris; but merely to the leading and governing rules which give to a municipal system whatever it possesses of analogy and consistency. To these rules Bacon gives the title of leges legum; but the meaning of the phrase, on this occasion, differs from that in which he afterwards employed it, not less widely than the rules of Latin or of Greek syntax differ from the principles of universal grammar.
* ↑ “La célébrité en France des écrits du Chancelier Bacon n’a guere pour date que celle de l’Encyclopédie.” (Histoire des Mathématiques par Montucla, Preface, p.ix.) It is an extraordinary circumstance, that Bayle, who has so often wasted his erudition and acuteness on the most insignificant characters, and to whom Le Clere has very justly ascribed the merit of une exactitude étonnante dans des choses de néant, should have devoted to Bacon only twelve lines of his Dictionary.
* ↑ See Note F.
* ↑ It is not so foreign as may at first be supposed to the object of this Discourse, to take notice here of the extraordinary demand for books on Agriculture under the government of James I. The fact is thus very strongly stated by Dr Johnson, in his introduction to the Harleian Miscellany, “It deserves to be remarked, because it is not generally known, that the treatises on husbandry and agriculture, which were published during the reign of King James, are so numerous, that it can scarcely be imagined by whom they were written, or to whom they were sold.” Nothing can illustrate more strongly the effects of a pacific system of policy, in encouraging a general taste for reading, as well as an active spirit of national improvement. At all times, and in every country, the extensive sale of books on agriculture, may be regarded as one of the most pleasing symptoms of mental cultivation in the great body of a people.
* ↑ To prevent being misunderstood, it is necessary for me to add, that I do not speak of the general style of these old authors; but only of detached passages, which may be selected from all of them, as earnests or first fruits of a new and brighter era in English literature. It may be safely affirmed, that in their works, and in the prose compositions of Milton, are to be found some of the finest sentences of which our language has yet to boast. To propose them now as models for imitation, would be quite absurd. Dr Lowth certainly went much too far when he said, “That in correctness, propriety, and purity of English style, Hooker hath hardly been surpassed, or even equalled, by any of his successors.” Preface to Lowth’s English Grammar.
* ↑ According to Dr Burnet (no contemptible judge of style), Bacon was “the first that writ our language correctly.” The same learned prelate pronounces Bacon to be “still our best author;” and this, at a time, when the works of Sprat, and many of the prose compositions of Cowley and of Dryden, were already in the hands of the public. It is difficult to conceive on what grounds Burnet proceeded, in hazarding so extraordinary an opinion. See the preface to Burnet’s translation of More’s Utopia. It is still more difficult, on the other hand, to account for the following very bold decision of Mr Hume. I transcribe it from an essay first published in 1742; but the same passage is to be found in the last edition of his works, corrected by himself. “The first polite prose we have, was writ by a man (Dr Swift) who is still alive. As to Sprat, Locke, and even Temple, they knew too little of the rules of art to be esteemed elegant writers. The prose of Bacon, Harrington, and Milton, is altogether stiff and pedantic; though their sense be excellent.” How insignificant are the petty grammatical improvements proposed by Swift, when compared with the inexhaustible riches imparted to the English tongue by the writers of the seventeenth century; and how inferior, in all the higher qualities and graces of style, are his prose compositions, to those of his immediate predecessors, Dryden, Pope, and Addison!
* ↑ Born 1588, died 1679.
* ↑ Divine Legation, Pref. to Vol. Il. p. 9.
* ↑ See Note G.
* ↑ Of Man, Part I. chap. xiii.
* ↑ De Corpore Politico, Part I. chap. i. § 10.
* ↑ In 1651.
* ↑ See Note H.
* ↑ The same doctrine, concerning the proper object of natural philosophy (commonly ascribed to Mr Hume, both by his followers and by his opponents), is to be found in various writers contemporary with Hobbes. It is stated, with uncommon precision and clearness, in a book entitled Scepsis Scientifica, or Confessed Ignorance the way to Science; by Joseph Glanvill, (printed in 1665.) The whole work is strongly marked with the features of an acute, an original, and (in matters of science) a somewhat sceptical genius; and, when compared with the treatise on witchcraft, by the same author, adds another proof to those already mentioned, of the possible union of the highest intellectual gifts with the most degrading intellectual weaknesses. With respect to the Scepsis Scientifica, it deserves to be noticed, that the doctrine maintained in it concerning physical causes and effects does not occur in the form of a detached observation, of the value of which the author might not have been fully aware, but is the very basis of the general argument running through all his discussions.
* ↑ Born 1617, died 1688.
* ↑ Hume.—For a more particular account of the English Antinomians, See Mosheim, Vol. IV. p. 534, et seq.
* ↑ The mind (according to Cudworth) perceives, by occasion of outward objects, as much more than is represented to it by sense, as a learned man does in the best written book, than an illiterate person or brute. “To the eyes of both, the same characters will appear; but the learned man, in those characters, will see heaven, earth, sun, and stars; read profound theorems of philosophy or geometry; learn a great deal of new knowledge from them, and admire the wisdom of the composer; while, to the other, nothing appears but black strokes drawn on white paper. The reason of which is, that the mind of the one is furnished with certain previous inward anticipations, ideas, and instruction, that the other wants.”—“In the room of this book of human composition, let us now substitute the book of Nature, written all over with the characters and impressions of divine wisdom and goodness, but legible only to an intellectual eye. To the sense both of man and brute, there appears nothing else in it, but, as in the other, so many inky scrawls; that is, nothing but figures and colours. But the mind, which hath a participation of the divine wisdom that made it, upon occasion of those sensible delineations, exerting its own inward activity, will have not only a wonderful scene, and large prospects of other thoughts laid open before it, and variety of knowledge, logical, mathematical, and moral displayed; but also clearly read the divine wisdom and goodness in every page of this great volume, as it were written in large and legible characters.” I do not pretend to be an adept in the philosophy of Kant; but I certainly think I pay it a very high compliment, when I suppose, that, in the Critic of pure Reason, the leading idea is somewhat analogous to what is so much better expressed in the foregoing passage. To Kant it was probably suggested by the following very acute and decisive remark of Leibnitz on Locke’s Essay; “Nompe, nihil est in intellectu, quod non fuerit in sensu, nisi ipse intellectus.” In justice to Aristotle, it may be here observed, that, although the general strain of his language is strictly conformable to the scholastic maxim just quoted, he does not seem to have altogether overlooked the important exception to it pointed out by Leibnitz. Indeed, this exception or limitation is very nearly a translation of Aristotle’s words. Και αυτος δε νους νοητος εστιν, ὡσπερ τα νοητα. επι μεν γαρ των ανευ ὑλης, το αυτο εστι το νοουν ϗ το νοουμενον. “And the mind itself is an object of knowledge, as well as other things which are intelligible. Fοr, in immaterial beings, that which understands is the same with that which is understood.” (De Anima, Lib. iii. cap. v.) I quote this very curious, and, I suspect, very little known sentence, in order to vindicate Aristotle against the misrepresentations of some of his present idolaters, who, in their anxiety to secure to him all the credit of Locke’s doctrine concerning the Origin of our Ideas, have overlooked the occasional traces which occur in his works, of that higher and sounder philosophy in which he had been educated.
* ↑ “The doctrines of fate or destiny were deemed by the Independents essential to all religion. In these rigid opinions, the whole sectaries, amidst all their other differences, unanimously concurred.” Hume’s History, chap. lvii.
* ↑ “Vous répétez sans cesse que la vérité ne peut jamais faire de mal aux hommes ; je le crois, et c’est pour moi la preuve que ce que vous dites n’est pas la vérité.”
* ↑ The Intellectual System was published in 1678. The Treatise concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality did not appear till a considerable number of years after the author’s death.
* ↑ In a note annexed to an English translation of the Cardinal Maury’s Principles of Eloquence, it is stated, upon the authority of a manuscript of Dr Doddridge, that most of Barrow’s sermons were transcribed three times, and some much oftener. They seem to me to contain very strong intrinsic evidence of the incorrectness of this anecdote.—Mr Abraham Hill, (in his Account of the Life of Barrow, addressed to Dr Tillotson), contents himself with saying, that “Some of his sermons were written four or five times over;”—mentioning, at the same time, a circumstance which may account for this fact, in perfect consistency with what I have stated above,—that “Barrow was very ready to lend his sermons as often as desired.”
* ↑ Through the whole of this Discourse, I have avoided touching on the discussions which, on various occasions, have arisen with regard to the theory of government, and the comparative advantages or disadvantages of different political forms. Of the scope and spirit of these discussions it would be seldom possible to convey a just idea, without entering into details of a local or temporary nature, inconsistent with my general design. in the present circumstances of the world, besides, the theory of government (although, in one point of view, the most important of all studies) seems to possess a very subordinate interest to inquiries connected with political economy, and with the fundamental principles of legislation. What is it, indeed, that renders one form of government more favourable than another to human happiness, but the superior security it provides for the enactment of wise laws, and for their impartial and vigorous execution? These considerations will sufficiently account for my passing over in silence, not only the names of Needham, of Sidney, and of Milton, but that of Harrington, whose Oceana is justly regarded as one of the boasts of English literature, and is pronounced by Hume to be “the only valuable model of a commonwealth that has yet been offered to the public.” (Essays and Treatises, Vol. I. Essay xvi.) A remark which Hume has elsewhere made on the Oceana, appears to me so striking and so instructive, that I shall give it a place in this note, “Harrington,” he observes, “thought himself so sure of his general principle, that the balance of power depends on that of property, that he ventured to pronounce it impossible ever to re-establish monarchy in England: But his bock was scarcely published when the King was restored; and we see that monarchy has ever since subsisted on the same footing as before. So dangerous is it for a politician to venture to foretel the situation of public affairs a few years hence.” Ibid. Essay vii. How much nearer the truth (even in the science of politics) is Bacon’s cardinal principle, that knowledge is power!—a principle, which applies to Man not less in his corporate than in his individual capacity; and which may be safely trusted to as the most solid of all foundations for our reasonings concerning the future history of the world.
* ↑ The Royal Society of London, though not incorporated by charter till 1662, may be considered as virtually existing, at least as far back as 1638, when some of the most eminent of the original members began first to hold regular meetings at Gresham College, for the purpose of philosophical discussion. Even these meetings were but a continuation of those previously held by the same individuals, at the apartments of Dr Wilkins in Oxford, See Sprat’s History of the Royal Society.
* ↑ History of England, Chap. lxii.
* ↑ Chalmers’s Political Estimate, &c. (London 1804.) p. 44.
* ↑ Essay of Civil Liberty.