CHAPTER III.
1. Imagination defined. 2. Sleep and dreams defined. 3. Causes of dreams. 4. Fiction defined. 5. Phantasms defined. 6. Remembrance defined. 7. Wherein remembrance consisteth. 8. Why in a dream a man never thinks he dreams. 9. Why few things seem strange in dreams. 10. That a dream may be taken for reality and vision.
1. As standing water put into motion by the stroke of a stone, or blast of wind, doth not presently give over moving as soon as the wind ceaseth, or the stone settleth: so neither doth the effect cease which the object hath wrought upon the brain, so soon as ever by turning aside of the organs the object ceaseth to work; that is to say, though the sense be past, the image or conception remaineth; but more obscure while we are awake, because some object or other continually plieth and soliciteth our eyes, and ears, keeping the mind in a stronger motion, whereby the weaker doth not easily appear. And this obscure conception is that we call phantasy, or imagination: imagination being, to define it, conception remaining, and by little and little decaying from and after the act of sense.
2. But when present sense is not, as in sleep, there the images remaining after sense, when there be many, as in dreams, are not obscure, but strong and clear, as in sense itself. The reason is, that which obscured and made the conceptions weak, namely sense, and present operation of the object, is removed: for sleep is the privation of the act of sense, (the power remaining) and dreams are the imagination of them that sleep.
3. The causes of dreams, if they be natural, are the actions or violence of the inward parts of a man upon his brain, by which the passages of sense by sleep benumbed, are restored to their motion. The signs by which this appeareth to be so, are the differences of dreams (old men commonly dream oftener, and have their dreams more painful than young) proceeding from the different accidents of man’s body, as dreams of lust, as dreams of anger, according as the heart, or other parts within, work more or less upon the brain, by more or less heat; so also the descents of different sorts of phlegm maketh us a dream of different tastes of meats and drinks; and I believe there is a reciprocation of motion from the brain to the vital parts, and back from the vital parts to the brain; whereby not only imagination begetteth motion in those parts; but also motion in those parts begetteth imagination like to that by which it was begotten. If this be true, and that sad imaginations nourish the spleen, then we see also a cause, why a strong spleen reciprocally causeth fearful dreams, and why the effects of lasciviousness may in a dream produce the image of some person that had caused them. Another sign that dreams are caused by the action of the inward parts, is the disorder and casual consequence of one conception or image to another: for when we are waking, the antecedent thought or conception introduceth, and is cause of the consequent, as the water followeth a man’s finger upon a dry and level table; but in dreams there is commonly no coherence, and when there is, it is by chance, which must needs proceed from this, that the brain in dreams is not restored to its motion in every part alike; whereby it cometh to pass, that our thoughts appear like the stars between the flying clouds, not in the order which a man would choose to observe them, but as the uncertain flight of broken clouds permits.
4. As when the water, or any liquid thing moved at once by divers movents, receiveth one motion compounded of them all; so also the brain or spirit therein, having been stirred by divers objects, composeth an imagination of divers conceptions that appeared single to the sense. As for example, the sense sheweth at one time the figure of a mountain, and at another time the colour of gold; but the imagination afterwards hath them both at once in a golden mountain. From the same cause it is, there appear unto us castles in the air, chimeras, and other monsters which are not in rerum natura, but have been conceived by the sense in pieces at several times. And this composition is that which we commonly call fiction of the mind.
5. There is yet another kind of imagination, which for clearness contendeth with sense, as well as a dream; and that is, when the action of sense hath been long or vehement: and the experience thereof is more frequent in the sense of seeing, than the rest. An example whereof is, the image remaining before the eye after looking upon the sun. Also, those little images that appear before the eyes in the dark (whereof I think every man hath experience, but they most of all, who are timorous or superstitious) are examples of the same. And these, for distinction-sake, may be called phantasms.
6. By the senses, which are numbered according to the organs to be five, we take notice (as hath been said already) of the objects without us; and that notice is our conception thereof: but we take notice also some way or other of our conceptions: for when the conception of the same thing cometh again, we take notice that it is again; that is to say, that we have had the same conception before; which is as much as to imagine a thing past; which is impossible to the sense, which is only of things present. This therefore may be accounted a sixth sense, but internal, (not external, as the rest) and is commonly called remembrance.
7. For the manner by which we take notice of a conception past, we are to remember, that in the definition of imagination, it is said to be a conception by little and little decaying, or growing more obscure. An obscure conception is that which representeth the whole object together, but none of the smaller parts by themselves; and as more or fewer parts be represented, so is the conception or representation said to be more or less clear. Seeing then the conception, which when it was first produced by sense, was clear, and represented the parts of the object distinctly; and when it cometh again is obscure, we find missing somewhat that we expected; by which we judge it past and decayed. For example, a man that is present in a foreign city, seeth not only whole streets, but can also distinguish particular houses, and parts of houses; but departed thence, he cannot distinguish them so particularly in his mind as he did, some house or turning escaping him; yet is this to remember: when afterwards there escape him more particulars, this is also to remember, but not so well. In process of time, the image of the city returneth but as a mass of building only, which is almost to have forgotten it. Seeing then remembrance is more or less, as we find more or less obscurity, why may not we well think remembrance to be nothing else but the missing of parts, which every man expecteth should succeed after they have a conception of the whole? To see at a great distance of place, and to remember at a great distance of time, is to have like conceptions of the thing: for there wanteth distinction of parts in both; the one conception being weak by operation at distance, the other by decay.
8. And from this that hath been said, there followeth, that a man can never know he dreameth; he may dream he doubteth, whether it be a dream or no: but the clearness of the imagination representeth every thing with as many parts as doth sense itself, and consequently, he can take notice of nothing but as present; whereas to think he dreameth, is to think those his conceptions, that is to say dreams, obscurer than they were in the sense: so that he must think them both as clear, and not as clear as sense; which is impossible.
9. From the same ground it proceedeth, that men wonder not in their dreams at place and persons, as they would do waking: for waking, a man would think it strange to be in a place where he never was before, and remember nothing of how he came there; but in a dream, there cometh little of that kind into consideration. The clearness of conception in a dream, taketh away distrust, unless the strangeness be excessive, as to think himself fallen from on high without hurt, and then most commonly he waketh.
10. Nor is it impossible for a man to be so far deceived, as when his dream is past, to think it real: for if he dream of such things as are ordinarily in his mind, and in such order as he useth to do waking, and withal that he laid him down to sleep in the place where he findeth himself when he awaketh; all which may happen: I know no κριτήριον or mark by which he can discern whether it were a dream or not, and therefore do the less wonder to hear a man sometimes to tell his dream for a truth, or to take it for a vision.
CHAPTER IV.
1. Discourse. 2. The cause of coherence of thoughts. 3. Ranging. 4. Sagacity. 5. Reminiscence. 6. Experience. 7. Expectation. 8. Conjecture. 9. Signs. 10. Prudence. 11. Caveats of concluding from experience.
1. The succession of conceptions in the mind, series or consequence of one after another, may be casual and incoherent, as in dreams for the most part; and it may be orderly, as when the former thought introduceth the latter; and this is discourse of the mind. But because the word discourse is commonly taken for the coherence and consequence of words, I will, to avoid equivocation, call it discursion.
2. The cause of the coherence or consequence of one conception to another, is their first coherence or consequence at that time when they are produced by sense: as for example, from St. Andrew the mind runneth to St. Peter, because their names are read together; from St. Peter to a stone, for the same cause; from stone to foundation, because we see them together; and for the same cause, from foundation to church, and from church to people, and from people to tumult: and according to this example, the mind may run almost from anything to anything. But as in the sense the conception of cause and effect may succeed one another; so may they after sense in the imagination: and for the most part they do so; the cause whereof is the appetite of them, who, having a conception of the end, have next unto it a conception of the next means to that end: as, when a man, from a thought of honour to which he hath an appetite, cometh to the thought of wisdom, which is the next means thereunto; and from thence to the thought of study, which is the next means to wisdom.
3. To omit that kind of discursion by which we proceed from anything to anything, there are of the other kind divers sorts: as first, in the senses there are certain coherences of conceptions, which we may call ranging; examples whereof are; a man casteth his eye upon the ground, to look about for some small thing lost; the hounds casting about at a fault in hunting; and the ranging of spaniels: and herein we take a beginning arbitrary.
4. Another sort of discursion is, when the appetite giveth a man his beginning, as in the example before, where honour to which a man hath appetite, maketh him think upon the next means of attaining it, and that again of the next, &c. And this the Latins call sagacitas, and we may call hunting or tracing, as dogs trace beasts by the smell, and men hunt them by their footsteps; or as men hunt after riches, place, or knowledge.
5. There is yet another kind of discursion beginning with the appetite to recover something lost, proceeding from the present backward, from thought of the place where we miss at, to the thought of the place from whence we came last; and from the thought of that, to the thought of a place before, till we have in our mind some place, wherein we had the thing we miss: and this is called reminiscence.
6. The remembrance of succession of one thing to another, that is, of what was antecedent, and what consequent, and what concomitant, is called an experiment; whether the same be made by us voluntarily, as when a man putteth any thing into the fire, to see what effect the fire will produce upon it: or not made by us, as when we remember a fair morning after a red evening. To have had many experiments, is that we call experience, which is nothing else but remembrance of what antecedents have been followed by what consequents.
7. No man can have in his mind a conception of the future, for the future is not yet: but of our conceptions of the past, we make a future; or rather, call past, future relatively. Thus after a man hath been accustomed to see like antecedents followed by like consequents, whensoever he seeth the like come to pass to any thing he had seen before, he looks there should follow it the same that followed then: as for example, because a man hath often seen offences followed by punishment, when he seeth an offence in present, he thinketh punishment to be consequent thereto; but consequent unto that which is present, men call future; and thus we make remembrance to be the prevision of things to come, or expectation or presumption of the future.
8. In the same manner, if a man seeth in present that which he hath seen before, he thinks that that which was antecedent to that which he saw before, is also antecedent to that he presently seeth: as for example, he that hath seen the ashes remain after the fire, and now again seeth ashes, concludeth again there hath been fire: and this is called again conjecture of the past, or presumption of the fact.
9. When a man hath so often observed like antecedents to be followed by like consequents, that whensoever he seeth the antecedent, he looketh again for the consequent; or when he seeth the consequent, maketh account there hath been the like antecedent; then he calleth both the antecedent and the consequent, signs one of another, as clouds are signs of rain to come, and rain of clouds past.
10. This taking of signs by experience, is that wherein men do ordinarily think, the difference stands between man and man in wisdom, by which they commonly understand a man’s whole ability or power cognitive; but this is an error: for the signs are but conjectural; and according as they have often or seldom failed, so their assurance is more or less; but never full and evident: for though a man have always seen the day and night to follow one another hitherto; yet can he not thence conclude they shall do so, or that they have done so eternally: experience concludeth nothing universally. If the signs hit twenty times for one missing, a man may lay a wager of twenty to one of the event; but may not conclude it for a truth. But by this it is plain, that they shall conjecture best, that have most experience, because they have most signs to conjecture by: which is the reason old men are more prudent, that is, conjecture better, cæteris paribus, than young: for, being old, they remember more; and experience is but remembrance. And men of quick imagination, cæteris paribus, are more prudent than those whose imaginations are slow: for they observe more in less time. Prudence is nothing but conjecture from experience, or taking of signs from experience warily, that is, that the experiments from which he taketh such signs be all remembered; for else the cases are not alike that seem so.
11. As in conjecture concerning things past and future, it is prudence to conclude from experience, what is like to come to pass, or to have passed already; so it is an error to conclude from it, that it is so or so called; that is to say, we cannot from experience conclude, that any thing is to be called just or unjust, true or false, or any proposition universal whatsoever, except it be from remembrance of the use of names imposed arbitrarily by men: for example, to have heard a sentence given in the like case, the like sentence a thousand times is not enough to conclude that the sentence is just; though most men have no other means to conclude by: but it is necessary, for the drawing of such conclusion, to trace and find out, by many experiences, what men do mean by calling things just and unjust. Further, there is another caveat to be taken in concluding by experience, from the tenth section of the second chapter; that is, that we conclude such things to be without, that are within us.
CHAPTER V.
1. Of marks. 2. Names or appellations. 3. Names positive and privative. 4. Advantage of names maketh us capable of science. 5. Names universal and singular. 6. Universals not in rerum natura. 7. Equivocal names. 8. Understanding. 9. Affirmation, negation, proposition. 10. Truth, falsity. 11. Ratiocination. 12. According to reason, against reason. 13. Names causes of knowledge, so of error. 14. Translation of the discourse of the mind into the discourse of the tongue, and of the errors thence proceeding.
1. Seeing the succession of conceptions in the mind are caused, as hath been said before, by the succession they had one to another when they were produced by the senses, and that there is no conception that hath not been produced immediately before or after innumerable others, by the innumerable acts of sense; it must needs follow, that one conception followeth not another, according to our election, and the need we have of them, but as it chanceth us to hear or see such things as shall bring them to our mind. The experience we have hereof, is in such brute beasts, which, having the providence to hide the remains and superfluity of their meat, do nevertheless want the remembrance of the place where they hid it, and thereby make no benefit thereof in their hunger: but man, who in this point beginneth to rank himself somewhat above the nature of beasts, hath observed and remembered the cause of this defect, and to amend the same, hath imagined or devised to set up a visible or other sensible mark, the which, when he seeth it again, may bring to his mind the thought he had when he set it up. A mark therefore is a sensible object which a man erecteth voluntarily to himself, to the end to remember thereby somewhat past, when the same is objected to his sense again: as men that have passed by a rock at sea, set up some mark, thereby to remember their former danger, and avoid it.
2. In the number of these marks, are those human voices, which we call the names or appellations of things sensible by the ear, by which we recall into our mind some conceptions of the things to which we gave those names or appellations; as the appellation white bringeth to remembrance the quality of such objects as produce that colour or conception in us. A name or appellation therefore is the voice of a man arbitrary, imposed for a mark to bring into his mind some conception concerning the thing on which it is imposed.
3. Things named, are either the objects themselves, as a man; or the conception itself that we have of man, as shape and motion: or some privation, which is when we conceive that there is something which we conceive, not in him; as when we conceive he is not just, not finite, we give him the name of unjust, of infinite, which signify privation or defect; and to the privations themselves we give the names of injustice and infiniteness: so that here be two sorts of names; one of things, in which we conceive something; or of the conceptions themselves, which are called positive: the other of things wherein we conceive privation or defect, and those names are called privative.
4. By the advantage of names it is that we are capable of science, which beasts, for want of them are not; nor man, without the use of them: for as a beast misseth not one or two out of many her young ones, for want of those names of order, one, two, and three, and which we call number; so neither would a man, without repeating orally or mentally the words of number, know how many pieces of money or other things lie before him.
5. Seeing there be many conceptions of one and the same thing, and for every conception we give it a several name; it followeth that for one and the same thing, we have many names or attributes; as to the same man we give the appellations of just, valiant, &c. for divers virtues; of strong, comely, &c. for divers qualities of the body. And again, because from divers things we receive like conceptions, many things must needs have the same appellation: as to all things we see, we give the same name of visible; and to all things we see moveable, we give the appellation of moveable: and those names we give to many, are called universal to them all; as the name of man to every particular of mankind: such appellation as we give to one only thing, we call individual, or singular; as Socrates, and other proper names: or, by circumlocution, he that writ the Iliads, for Homer.
6. The universality of one name to many things, hath been the cause that men think the things are themselves universal; and so seriously contend, that besides Peter and John, and all the rest of the men that are, have been, or shall be in the world, there is yet something else that we call man, viz. man in general, deceiving themselves, by taking the universal, or general appellation, for the thing it signifieth: for if one should desire the painter to make him the picture of a man, which is as much as to say, of a man in general; he meaneth no more, but that the painter should choose what man he pleaseth to draw, which must needs be some of them that are, or have been, or may be, none of which are universal. But when he would have him to draw the picture of the king, or any particular person, he limiteth the painter to that one person he chooseth. It is plain therefore, that there is nothing universal but names; which are therefore called indefinite; because we limit them not ourselves, but leave them to be applied by the hearer: whereas a singular name is limited and restrained to one of the many things it signifieth; as when we say, this man, pointing to him, or giving him his proper name, or by some such other way.
7. The appellations that be universal, and common to many things, are not always given to all the particulars, (as they ought to be) for like conceptions, and like considerations in them all; which is the cause that many of them are not of constant signification, but bring into our mind other thoughts than those for which they were ordained, and these are called equivocal. As for example, the word faith signifieth the same with belief; sometimes it signifieth particularly that belief which maketh a Christian; and sometime it signifieth the keeping of a promise. Also all metaphors are by profession equivocal: and there is scarce any word that is not made equivocal by divers contextures of speech, or by diversity of pronunciation and gesture.
8. This equivocation of names maketh it difficult to recover those conceptions for which the name was ordained; and that not only in the language of other men, wherein we are to consider the drift, and occasion, and contexture of the speech, as well as the words themselves; but also in our discourse, which being derived from the custom and common use of speech, representeth unto us not our own conceptions. It is therefore a great ability in a man, out of the words, contexture, and other circumstances of language, to deliver himself from equivocation, and to find out the true meaning of what is said: and this is it we call understanding.
9. Of two appellations, by the help of this little verb is, or something equivalent, we make an affirmation or negation, either of which in the Schools we call also a proposition, and consisteth of two appellations joined together by the said verb is: as for example, man is a living creature; or thus, man is not righteous: whereof the former is called an affirmation, because the appellation, living creature, is positive; the latter a negative, because not righteous is privative.
10. In every proposition, be it affirmative or negative, the latter appellation either comprehendeth the former, as in this proposition, charity is a virtue, the name of virtue comprehendeth the name of charity, and many other virtues beside; and then is the proposition said to be true, or truth: for, truth, and a true proposition, is all one. Or else the latter appellation comprehendeth not the former; as in this proposition, every man is just; the name of just comprehendeth not every man; for unjust is the name of the far greater part of men: and the proposition is said to be false, or falsity: falsity and a false proposition being also the same thing.
11. In what manner of two propositions, whether both affirmative, or one affirmative, the other negative, is made a syllogism, I forbear to write. All this that hath been said of names or propositions, though necessary, is but dry discourse: and this place is not for the whole art of logic, which if I enter further into, I ought to pursue: besides, it is not needful; for there be few men which have not so much natural logic, as thereby to discern well enough, whether any conclusion I shall make in this discourse hereafter, be well or ill collected: only thus much I say in this place, that making of syllogisms is that we call ratiocination or reasoning.
12. Now when a man reasoneth from principles that are found indubitable by experience, all deceptions of sense and equivocation of words avoided, the conclusion he maketh is said to be according to right reason: but when from his conclusion a man may, by good ratiocination, derive that which is contradictory to any evident truth whatsoever, then he is said to have concluded against reason: and such a conclusion is called absurdity.
13. As the invention of names hath been necessary for the drawing men out of ignorance, by calling to their remembrance the necessary coherence of one conception to another; so also hath it on the other side precipitated men into error: insomuch, that whereas by the benefit of words and ratiocination they exceed brute beasts in knowledge, and the commodities that accompany the same; so they exceed them also in error: for true and false are things not incident to beasts, because they adhere not to propositions and language; nor have they ratiocination, whereby to multiply one untruth by another, as men have.
14. It is the nature almost of every corporal thing, being often moved in one and the same manner, to receive continually a greater and greater easiness and aptitude to the same motion, insomuch as in time the same becometh so habitual, that, to beget it, there needs no more than to begin it. The passions of man, as they are the beginning of voluntary motions; so are they the beginning of speech, which is the motion of the tongue. And men desiring to shew others the knowledge, opinions, conceptions, and passions which are in themselves, and to that end having invented language, have by that means transferred all that discursion of their mind mentioned in the former chapter, by the motion of their tongues, into discourse of words: and ratio now is but oratio, for the most part, wherein custom hath so great a power, that the mind suggesteth only the first word; the rest follow habitually, and are not followed by the mind; as it is with beggars, when they say their paternoster, putting together such words, and in such manner, as in their education they have learned from their nurses, from their companies, or from their teachers, having no images or conceptions in their mind, answering to the words they speak: and as they have learned themselves, so they teach posterity. Now, if we consider the power of those deceptions of the sense, mentioned chapter II. section 10, and also how unconstantly names have been settled, and how subject they are to equivocation, and how diversified by passion, (scarce two men agreeing what is to be called good, and what evil; what liberality, what prodigality; what valour, what temerity) and how subject men are to paralogism or fallacy in reasoning, I may in a manner conclude, that it is impossible to rectify so many errors of any one man, as must needs proceed from those causes, without beginning anew from the very first grounds of all our knowledge and sense; and instead of books, reading over orderly one’s own conceptions: in which meaning, I take nosce te ipsumte ipsum for a precept worthy the reputation it hath gotten.
CHAPTER VI.
1. Of the two kinds of knowledge. 2. Truth and evidence necessary to knowledge. 3. Evidence defined. 4. Science defined. 5. Supposition defined. 6. Opinion defined. 7. Belief defined. 8. Conscience defined. 9. Belief, in some cases, no less from doubt than knowledge.
1. There is a story somewhere, of one that pretends to have been miraculously cured of blindness, wherewith he was born, by St. Alban or other Saints, at the town of St. Alban’s; and that the Duke of Gloucester being there, to be satisfied of the truth of the miracle, asked the man, What colour is this? who, by answering, it was green, discovered himself, and was punished for a counterfeit: for though by his sight newly received he might distinguish between green, and red, and all other colours, as well as any that should interrogate him, yet he could not possibly know at first sight which of them was called green, or red, or by any other name. By this we may understand, there be two kinds of knowledge, whereof the one is nothing else but sense, or knowledge original, as I have said in the beginning of the second chapter, and remembrance of the same; the other is called science or knowledge of the truth of propositions, and how things are called, and is derived from understanding. Both of these sorts are but experience; the former being the experience of the effects of things that work upon us from without; and the latter experience men have from the proper use of names in language: and all experience being, as I have said, but remembrance, all knowledge is remembrance: and of the former, the register we keep in books, is called history; but the registers of the latter are called the sciences.
2. There are two things necessarily implied in this word knowledge; the one is truth, the other evidence; for what is not truth, can never be known. For, let a man say he knoweth a thing never so well, if the same shall afterwards appear false, he is driven to confession, that it was not knowledge, but opinion. Likewise, if the truth be not evident, though a man holdeth it, yet is his knowledge thereof no more than theirs who hold the contrary: for if truth were enough to make it knowledge, all truth were known; which is not so.
3. What truth is, hath been defined in the precedent chapter; what evidence is, I now set down: and it is the concomitance of a man’s conception with the words that signify such conception in the act of ratiocination: for when a man reasoneth with his lips only, to which the mind suggesteth only the beginning, and followeth not the words of his mouth with the conceptions of his mind, out of custom of so speaking; though he begin his ratiocination with true propositions, and proceed with certain syllogisms, and thereby make always true conclusions; yet are not his conclusions evident to him, for want of the concomitance of conception with his words: for if the words alone were sufficient, a parrot might be taught as well to know truth, as to speak it. Evidence is to truth, as the sap to the tree, which, so far as it creepeth along with the body and branches, keepeth them alive; where it forsaketh them, they die: for this evidence, which is meaning with our words, is the life of truth.
4. Knowledge thereof, which we call science, I define to be evidence of truth, from some beginning or principle of sense: for the truth of a proposition is never evident, until we conceive the meaning of the words or terms whereof it consisteth, which are always conceptions of the mind: nor can we remember those conceptions, without the thing that produced the same by our senses. The first principle of knowledge is, that we have such and such conceptions; the second, that we have thus and thus named the things whereof they are conceptions; the third is, that we have joined those names in such manner as to make true propositions; the fourth and last is, that we have joined those propositions in such manner as they be concluding, and the truth of the conclusion said to be known. And of these two kinds of knowledge, whereof the former is experience of fact, and the latter evidence of truth; as the former, if it be great, is called prudence; so the latter, if it be much, hath usually been called, both by ancient and modern writers, sapience or wisdom: and of this latter, man only is capable; of the former, brute beasts also participate.