18. Forasmuch as all knowledge beginneth from experience, therefore also new experience is the beginning of new knowledge, and the increase of experience the beginning of the increase of knowledge. Whatsoever therefore happeneth new to a man, giveth him matter of hope of knowing somewhat that he knew not before. And this hope and expectation of future knowledge from anything that happeneth new and strange, is that passion which we commonly call admiration; and the same considered as appetite, is called curiosity, which is appetite of knowledge. As in the discerning of faculties, man leaveth all community with beasts at the faculty of imposing names; so also doth he surmount their nature at this passion of curiosity. For when a beast seeth anything new and strange to him, he considereth it so far only as to discern whether it be likely to serve his turn, or hurt him, and accordingly approacheth nearer to it, or fleeth from it: whereas man, who in most events remembereth in what manner they were caused and begun, looketh for the cause and beginning of everything that ariseth new unto him. And from this passion of admiration and curiosity, have arisen not only the invention of names, but also supposition of such causes of all things as they thought might produce them. And from this beginning is derived all philosophy; as astronomy from the admiration of the course of heaven; natural philosophy from the strange effects of the elements and other bodies. And from the degrees of curiosity, proceed also the degrees of knowledge amongst men: for, to a man in the chase of riches or authority, (which in respect of knowledge are but sensuality) it is a diversity of little pleasure, whether it be the motion of the sun or the earth that maketh the day, or to enter into other contemplations of any strange accident, otherwise than whether it conduce or not to the end he pursueth. Because curiosity is delight, therefore also novelty is so, but especially that novelty from which a man conceiveth an opinion true or false of bettering his own estate; for, in such case, they stand affected with the hope that all gamesters have while the cards are shuffling.
19. Divers other passions there be, but they want names: whereof some nevertheless have been by most men observed: for example; from what passion proceedeth it, that men take pleasure to behold from the shore the danger of them that are at sea in a tempest, or in fight, or from a safe castle to behold two armies charge one another in the field? It is certainly, in the whole sum, joy; else men would never flock to such a spectacle. Nevertheless there is in it both joy and grief: for as there is novelty and remembrance of our own security present, which is delight; so there is also pity, which is grief; but the delight is so far predominant, that men usually are content in such a case to be spectators of the misery of their friends.
20. Magnanimity is no more than glory, of the which I have spoken in the first section; but glory well grounded upon certain experience of a power sufficient to attain his end in open manner. And pusillanimity is the doubt of that. Whatsoever therefore is a sign of vain glory, the same is also a sign of pusillanimity: for sufficient power maketh glory a spur to one’s end. To be pleased or displeased with fame true or false, is a sign of that same, because he that relieth on fame hath not his success in his own power. Likewise art and fallacy are signs of pusillanimity, because they depend not upon our own power, but the ignorance of others. Also proneness to anger, because it argueth difficulty of proceeding. Also ostentation of ancestors, because all men are more inclined to make shew of their own power when they have it, than of another’s. To be at enmity and contention with inferiors, is a sign of the same, because it proceedeth from want of power to end the war. To laugh at others, because it is an affectation of glory from other men’s infirmities, and not from any ability of their own. Also irresolution, which proceedeth from want of power enough to contemn the little difficulties that make deliberations hard.
21. The comparison of the life of man to a race, though it hold not in every part, yet it holdeth so well for this our purpose, that we may thereby both see and remember almost all the passions before mentioned. But this race we must suppose to have no other goal, nor other garland, but being foremost, and in it:
1. Having shewed in the precedent chapters, that sense proceedeth from the action of external objects upon the brain, or some internal substance of the head; and that the passions proceed from the alteration there made, and continued to the heart: it is consequent in the next place, seeing the diversity of degrees in knowledge in divers men, to be greater than may be ascribed to the divers tempers of their brain, to declare what other causes may produce such odds, and excess of capacity, as we daily observe in one man above another. As for that difference which ariseth from sickness, and such accidental distempers, I omit the same, as impertinent to this place, and consider it only in such as have their health, and organs well disposed. If the difference were in the natural temper of the brain, I can imagine no reason why the same should not appear first and most of all in the senses, which being equal both in the wise and less wise, infer an equal temper in the common organ (namely the brain) of all the senses.
2. But we see by experience, that joy and grief proceed not in all men from the same causes, and that men differ very much in the constitution of the body; whereby, that which helpeth and furthereth vital constitution in one, and is therefore delightful, hindereth it and crosseth it in another, and therefore causeth grief. The difference therefore of wits hath its original from the different passions, and from the ends to which the appetite leadeth them.
3. And first, those men whose ends are sensual delight, and generally are addicted to ease, food, onerations and exonerations of the body, must needs be the less thereby delighted with those imaginations that conduce not to those ends, such as are imaginations of honour and glory, which, as I have said before, have respect to the future: for sensuality consisteth in the pleasure of the senses, which please only for the present, and take away the inclination to observe such things as conduce to honour, and consequently maketh men less curious, and less ambitious, whereby they less consider the way either to knowledge or other power; in which two consisteth all the excellency of power cognitive. And this is it which men call dulness, and proceedeth from the appetite of sensual or bodily delight. And it may well be conjectured, that such passion hath its beginning from a grossness and difficulty of the motion of the spirit about the heart.
4. The contrary hereunto, is that quick ranging of mind described, chapter IV. section 3, which is joined with curiosity of comparing the things that come into the mind, one with another: in which comparison, a man delighteth himself either with finding unexpected similitude of things, otherwise much unlike, in which men place the excellency of fancy, and from whence proceed those grateful similies, metaphors, and other tropes, by which both poets and orators have it in their power to make things please or displease, and shew well or ill to others, as they like themselves; or else in discerning suddenly dissimilitude in things that otherwise appear the same. And this virtue of the mind is that by which men attain to exact and perfect knowledge; and the pleasure thereof consisteth in continual instruction, and in distinction of places, persons, and seasons, and is commonly termed by the name of judgment: for, to judge is nothing else, but to distinguish or discern: and both fancy and judgment are commonly comprehended under the name of wit, which seemeth to be a tenuity and agility of spirits, contrary to that restiness of the spirits supposed in those that are dull.
5. There is another defect of the mind, which men call levity, which betrayeth also mobility in the spirits, but in excess. An example whereof is in them that in the midst of any serious discourse, have their minds diverted to every little jest or witty observation; which maketh them depart from their discourse by a parenthesis, and from that parenthesis by another, till at length they either lose themselves, or make their narration like a dream, or some studied nonsense. The passion from whence this proceedeth, is curiosity, but with too much equality and indifference: for when all things make equal impression and delight, they equally throng to be expressed.
6. The virtue opposite to this defect is gravity, or steadiness; in which the end being the great and master-delight, directeth and keepeth in the way thereto all other thoughts.
7. The extremity of dullness is that natural folly which may be called stolidity: but the extreme of levity, though it be natural folly distinct from the other, and obvious to every man’s observation, I know not how to call it.
8. There is a fault of the mind called by the Greeks Ἀμαϑια, which is indocibility, or difficulty of being taught; the which must needs arise from a false opinion that they know already the truth of that is called in question: for certainly men are not otherwise so unequal in capacity as the evidence is unequal between what is taught by the mathematicians, and what is commonly discoursed of in other books: and therefore if the minds of men were all of white paper, they would almost equally be disposed to acknowledge whatsoever should be in right method, and by right ratiocination delivered to them: but when men have once acquiesced in untrue opinions, and registered them as authentical records in their minds, it is no less impossible to speak intelligibly to such men, than to write legibly upon a paper already scribbled over. The immediate cause therefore of indocibility, is prejudice; and of prejudice, false opinion of our own knowledge.
9. Another, and a principal defect of the mind, is that which men call madness, which appeareth to be nothing else but some imagination of some such predominancy above the rest, that we have no passion but from it; and this conception is nothing else but excessive vain glory, or vain dejection; which is most probable by these examples following, which proceed in appearance every one of them from pride, or some dejection of mind. As first, we have had the example of one that preached in Cheapside from a cart there, instead of a pulpit, that he himself was Christ, which was spiritual pride or madness. We have had also divers examples of learned madness, in which men have manifestly been distracted upon any occasion that hath put them in remembrance of their own ability. Amongst the learned men, may be remembered, I think also, those that determine of the time of the world’s end, and other such the points of prophecy. And the gallant madness of Don Quixote is nothing else but an expression of such height of vain glory as reading of romance may produce in pusillanimous men. Also rage and madness of love, are but great indignations of them in whose brains is predominant contempt from their enemies, or their mistresses. And the pride taken in form and behaviour, hath made divers men run mad, and to be so accounted, under the name of fantastic.
10. And as these are the examples of extremities, so also are there examples too many of the degrees, which may therefore be well accounted follies; as it is a degree of the first, for a man, without certain evidence, to think himself to be inspired, or to have any other effect of God’s holy spirit than other godly men have. Of the second, for a man continually to speak his mind in a cento of other men’s Greek or Latin sentences. Of the third, much of the present gallantry in love and duel. Of rage, a degree is malice; and of fantastic madness, affectation.
11. As the former examples exhibit to us madness, and the degrees thereof, proceeding from the excess of self-opinion; so also there be other examples of madness, and the degrees thereof, proceeding from too much vain fear and dejection; as in those melancholy men that have imagined themselves brittle as glass, or have had some other like imagination: and degrees hereof are all those exorbitant and causeless fears, which we commonly observe in melancholy persons.
1. Hitherto of the knowledge of things natural, and of the passions that arise naturally from them. Now forasmuch as we give names not only to things natural, but also to supernatural; and by all names we ought to have some meaning and conception: it followeth in the next place, to consider what thoughts and imaginations of the mind we have, when we take into our mouths the most blessed name of God, and the names of those virtues we attribute unto him; as also, what image cometh into the mind at hearing the name of spirit, or the name of angel, good or bad.
2. And forasmuch as God Almighty is incomprehensible, it followeth, that we can have no conception or image of the Deity, and consequently, all his attributes signify our inability and defect of power to conceive any thing concerning his nature, and not any conception of the same, excepting only this, that there is a God: for the effects we acknowledge naturally, do include a power of their producing, before they were produced; and that power presupposeth something existent that hath such power: and the thing so existing with power to produce, if it were not eternal, must needs have been produced by somewhat before it, and that again by something else before that, till we come to an eternal, that is to say, the first power of all powers, and first cause of all causes: and this is it which all men conceive by the name of God, implying eternity, incomprehensibility, and omnipotency. And thus all that will consider, may know that God is, though not what he is: even a man that is born blind, though it be not possible for him to have any imagination what kind of thing fire is; yet he cannot but know that somewhat there is that men call fire, because it warmeth him.
3. And whereas we attribute to God Almighty, seeing, hearing, speaking, knowing, loving, and the like, by which names we understand something in men to whom we attribute them, we understand nothing by them in the nature of God: for, as it is well reasoned, Shall not the God that made the eye, see; and the ear, hear? So it is also, if we say, shall God, which made the eye, not see without the eye; or that made the ear, not hear without the ear; or that made the brain, not know without the brain; or that made the heart, not love without the heart? The attributes therefore given unto the Deity, are such as signify either our incapacity or our reverence: our incapacity, when we say incomprehensible and infinite; our reverence, when we give him those names, which amongst us are the names of those things we most magnify and commend, as omnipotent, omniscient, just, merciful, &c. And when God Almighty giveth those names to himself in the Scriptures, it is but ἀνϑρωποπαθῶς, that is to say, by descending to our manner of speaking; without which we are not capable of understanding him.
4. By the name of spirit, we understand a body natural, but of such subtilty, that it worketh not upon the senses; but that filleth up the place which the image of a visible body might fill up. Our conception therefore of spirit consisteth of figure without colour; and in figure is understood dimension, and consequently, to conceive a spirit, is to conceive something that hath dimension. But spirits supernatural commonly signify some substance without dimension; which two words do flatly contradict one another: and therefore when we attribute the name of spirit unto God, we attribute it not as the name of anything we conceive, no more than we ascribe unto him sense and understanding; but as a signification of our reverence, we desire to abstract from him all corporal grossness.
5. Concerning other things, which some men call spirits incorporeal, and some corporeal, it is not possible by natural means only, to come to knowledge of so much, as that there are such things. We that are Christians acknowledge that there be angels good and evil, and that there are spirits, and that the soul of a man is a spirit, and that those spirits are immortal: but, to know it, that is to say, to have natural evidence of the same, it is impossible: for, all evidence is conception, as it is said, chap. VI. sect. 3, and all conception is imagination, and proceedeth from sense, chap. III. sect. 1. And spirits we suppose to be those substances which work not upon the sense, and therefore not conceptible. But though the Scripture acknowledges spirits, yet doth it nowhere say, that they are incorporeal, meaning thereby, without dimension and quality; nor, I think, is that word incorporeal at all in the Bible; but it is said of the spirit, that it abideth in men; sometimes that it dwelleth in them, sometimes that it cometh on them, that it descendeth, and goeth, and cometh; and that spirits are angels, that is to say messengers: all which words do imply locality; and locality is dimension; and whatsoever hath dimension, is body, be it never so subtile. To me therefore it seemeth, that the Scripture favoureth them more, that hold angels and spirits corporeal, than them that hold the contrary. And it is a plain contradiction in natural discourse, to say of the soul of man, that it is tota in toto, et tota in qualibet parte corporis, grounded neither upon reason nor revelation, but proceeding from the ignorance of what those things are which are called spectra, images, that appear in the dark to children, and such as have strong fears, and other strange imaginations, as hath been said, chapter III. sect. 5, where I call them phantasms: for, taking them to be things real, without us, like bodies, and seeing them to come and vanish so strangely as they do, unlike to bodies; what could they call them else, but incorporeal bodies? which is not a name, but an absurdity of speech.
6. It is true, that the heathens, and all nations of the world, have acknowledged that there be spirits, which for the most part they hold to be incorporeal; whereby it might be thought, that a man by natural reason, may arrive, without the Scriptures, to the knowledge of this, that spirits are: but the erroneous collection thereof by the heathens, may proceed, as I have said before, from the ignorance of the cause of ghosts and phantasms, and such other apparitions. And from thence had the Grecians their number of gods, their number of dæmons good or bad, and for every man his genius; which is not the acknowledging of this truth, that spirits are; but a false opinion concerning the force of imagination.
7. And seeing the knowledge we have of spirits, is not natural knowledge, but faith from supernatural revelation given to the holy writers of the Scriptures; it followeth, that of inspirations also, which is the operation of spirit in us, the knowledge which we have, must all proceed from Scripture. The signs there set down of inspiration, are miracles, when they be great, and manifestly above the power of men to do by imposture: as for example, the inspiration of Elias was known by the miraculous burning of the sacrifice. But the signs to distinguish whether a spirit be good or evil, are the same by which we distinguish whether a man or a tree be good or evil, namely, actions and fruit: for there are lying spirits, wherewith men are inspired sometimes, as well as with spirits of truth. And we are commanded in Scripture, to judge of the spirits by their doctrine, and not of the doctrine by the spirits. For miracles, our Saviour (Matth. xxiv. 24) hath forbidden us to rule our faith by them. And Saint Paul saith, (Gal. i. 8): Though an angel from heaven preach to you otherwise, &c. let him be accursed. Where it is plain, that we are not to judge whether the doctrine be true or not, by the angel; but whether the angel say true or no, by the doctrine. So likewise, (1 Joh. iv. 1): Believe not every spirit: for false prophets are gone out into the world. Verse 2: Hereby shall ye know the spirit of God. Verse 3: Every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is not of God: and this is the spirit of Antichrist. Verse 15: Whosoever confesseth that Jesus is the Son of God, in him dwelleth God, and he in God. The knowledge therefore we have of good and evil inspiration, cometh not by vision of an angel that may teach it, nor by a miracle that may seem to confirm it; but by conformity of doctrine with this article and fundamental point of Christian faith, which also Saint Paul (1 Cor. iii. 11) saith is the sole foundation, That Jesus Christ is come in the flesh.
8. But if inspiration be discerned by this point, and this point be acknowledged and believed upon the authority of the Scriptures; how (may some men ask) know we that the Scripture deserveth so great authority, which must be no less than that of the lively voice of God; that is, how do we know the Scriptures to be the word of God? And first, it is manifest, that if by knowledge we understand science infallible and natural, as is defined, chap. VI. sect. 4, proceeding from sense, we cannot be said to know it, because it proceedeth not from the conceptions engendered by sense. And if we understand knowledge as supernatural, we cannot have it but by inspiration: and of that inspiration we cannot judge, but by the doctrine: it followeth, that we have not any way, natural or supernatural, of the knowledge thereof, which can properly be called infallible science and evidence. It remaineth, that the knowledge that we have that the Scriptures are the word of God, is only faith, which faith therefore is also by Saint Paul (Heb. xi. 1) defined to be the evidence of things not seen; that is to say, not otherwise evident but by faith: for, whatsoever either is evident by natural reason, or revelation supernatural, is not called faith; else should not faith cease, no more than charity, when we are in heaven; which is contrary to the doctrine of the Scripture. And, we are not said to believe, but to know those things that be evident.
9. Seeing then the acknowledgment of Scriptures to be the word of God, is not evidence, but faith, and faith (chapter VI. sect. 7) consisteth in the trust we have of other men, it appeareth plain, that the men so trusted, are the holy men of God’s church succeeding one another from the time of those that saw the wondrous works of God Almighty in the flesh. Nor doth this imply that God is not the worker or efficient cause of faith, or that faith is begotten in man without the spirit of God: for, all those good opinions which we admit and believe, though they proceed from hearing, and hearing from teaching, both which are natural, yet they are the work of God: for, all the works of nature are his, and they are attributed to the Spirit of God: as for example, Exod. xxviii. 3: Thou shalt speak unto all cunning men, whom I have filled with the SPIRIT of wisdom, that they may make Aaron’s garments for his consecration, that he may serve me in the priest’s office. Faith therefore, wherewith we believe, is the work of the Spirit of God in that sense, by which the Spirit of God giveth to one man wisdom and cunning in workmanship more than another; and by which he effecteth also in other points pertaining to our ordinary life, that one man believeth that, which, upon the same grounds, another doth not; and one man reverenceth the opinion, and obeyeth the commands of his superior, and others not.
10. And seeing our faith, that the Scriptures are the word of God, began from the confidence and trust we repose in the church; there can be no doubt but that their interpretation of the same Scriptures (when any doubt or controversy shall arise, by which this fundamental point, that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, may be called in question) is safer for any man to trust to, than his own, whether reasoning or spirit, that is to say, his own opinion.
11. Now concerning men’s affections to Godward, they are not the same always that are described in the chapter concerning passions. There, for to love, is to be delighted with the image or conception of the thing loved; but God is unconceivable: to love God therefore, in the Scripture, is to obey his commandments, and to love one another. Also to trust God, is different from our trusting one another: for, when a man trusteth a man, (chap. IX. sect. 9) he layeth aside his own endeavours: but if we do so in our trust to God Almighty, we disobey him; and how shall we trust to him whom we know we disobey? To trust to God Almighty therefore, is to refer to his good pleasure all that is above our own power to effect: and this is all one with acknowledging one only God, which is the first commandment. And to trust in Christ, is no more but to acknowledge him for God; which is the fundamental article of our Christian faith: and consequently, to trust, rely, or, as some express it, to cast and roll ourselves on Christ, is the same thing with the fundamental point of faith, namely, that Jesus Christ is the son of the living God.
12. To honour God internally in the heart, is the same thing with that we ordinarily call honour amongst men: for it is nothing but the acknowledging of his power; and the signs thereof, the same with the signs of the honour due to our superiors, mentioned chapter VIII. section 6, viz. to praise, to magnify, to bless, to pray to him, to thank him, to give oblations and sacrifices to him, to give attention to his word, to speak to him in prayer with consideration, to come into his presence with humble gesture, and in decent manner, and to adorn his worship with magnificence and cost: and these are natural signs of our honouring him internally: and therefore the contrary hereof, to neglect prayer, to speak to him extempore, to come to church slovenly, to adorn the place of his worship worse than our own houses, to take up his name in every idle discourse, are the manifest signs of contempt of the Divine Majesty. There be other signs which are arbitrary; as, to be uncovered, as we be here, to put off their shoes, as Moses at the fiery bush, and some other of that kind, which in their own nature are indifferent, till, to avoid indecency and discord, it be otherwise determined by common consent.
1. It hath been declared already, how external objects cause conceptions, and conceptions, appetite and fear, which are the first unperceived beginnings of our actions: for either the actions immediately follow the first appetite, as when we do anything upon a sudden; or else to our first appetite there succeedeth some conception of evil to happen to us by such actions, which is fear, and which holdeth us from proceeding. And to that fear may succeed a new appetite, and to that appetite another fear alternately, till the action be either done, or some accident come between, to make it impossible; and so this alternate appetite and fear ceaseth. This alternate succession of appetite and fear during all the time the action is in our power to do or not to do, is that we call deliberation; which name hath been given it for that part of the definition wherein it is said that it lasteth so long as the action, whereof we deliberate, is in our power: for, so long we have liberty to do or not to do; and deliberation signifieth a taking away of our own liberty.
2. Deliberation therefore requireth in the action deliberated two conditions; one, that it be future; the other, that there be hope of doing it, or possibility of not doing it; for, appetite and fear are expectations of the future; and there is no expectation of good, without hope; or of evil, without possibility: of necessaries therefore there is no deliberation. In deliberation, the last appetite, as also the last fear, is called will, viz. the last appetite, will to do, or will to omit. It is all one therefore to say will and last will: for, though a man express his present inclination and appetite concerning the disposing of his goods, by words or writings; yet shall it not be counted his will, because he hath still liberty to dispose of them otherways: but when death taketh away that liberty, then it is his will.
3. Voluntary actions and omissions are such as have beginning in the will; all other are involuntary, or mixed voluntary; involuntary, such as he doth by necessity of nature, as when he is pushed, or falleth, and thereby doth good or hurt to another: mixed, such as participate of both; as when a man is carried to prison, going is voluntary, to the prison, is involuntary: the example of him that throweth his goods out of a ship into the sea, to save his person, is of an action altogether voluntary: for, there is nothing therein involuntary, but the hardness of the choice, which is not his action, but the action of the winds: what he himself doth, is no more against his will, than to flee from danger is against the will of him that seeth no other means to preserve himself.
4. Voluntary also are the actions that proceed from sudden anger, or other sudden appetite in such men as can discern good or evil: for, in them the time precedent is to be judged deliberation: for then also he deliberateth in what cases it is good to strike, deride, or do any other action proceeding from anger or other such sudden passion.
5. Appetite, fear, hope, and the rest of the passions are not called voluntary; for they proceed not from, but are the will; and the will is not voluntary: for, a man can no more say he will will, than he will will will, and so make an infinite repetition of the word [will]; which is absurd, and insignificant.
6. Forasmuch as will to do is appetite, and will to omit, fear; the cause of appetite and fear is the cause also of our will: but the propounding of the benefits and of harms, that is to say, of reward and punishment, is the cause of our appetite, and of our fears, and therefore also of our wills, so far forth as we believe that such rewards and benefits as are propounded, shall arrive unto us; and consequently, our wills follow our opinions, as our actions follow our wills; in which sense they say truly, and properly, that say the world is governed by opinion.
7. When the wills of many concur to one and the same action and effect, this concourse of their wills is called consent; by which we must not understand one will of many men, for every man hath his several will, but many wills to the producing of one effect: but when the wills of two divers men produce such actions as are reciprocally resistant one to the other, this is called contention; and, being upon the persons one of another, battle: whereas actions proceeding from consent, are mutual aid.
8. When many wills are involved or included in the will of one or more consenting, (which how it may be, shall be hereafter declared) then is that involving of many wills in one or more, called union.
9. In deliberations interrupted, as they may be by diversion of other business, or by sleep, the last appetite of such part of the deliberation is called intention, or purpose.
1. Having spoken of the powers and acts of the mind, both cognitive and motive, considered in every man by himself, without relation to others; it will fall fitly into this chapter, to speak of the effects of the same power one upon another; which effects are also the signs, by which one taketh notice what another conceiveth and intendeth. Of these signs, some are such as cannot easily be counterfeited; as actions and gestures, especially if they be sudden, whereof I have mentioned some; (for example, look in chapter IX.) with the several passions whereof they are signs: others there are which may be counterfeited; and those are words or speech; of the use and effects whereof, I am to speak in this place.
2. The first use of language, is the expression of our conceptions, that is, the begetting in one another the same conceptions that we have in ourselves; and this is called teaching; wherein, if the conception of him that teacheth continually accompany his words, beginning at something true in experience, then it begetteth the like evidence in the hearer that understandeth them, and maketh him to know something, which he is therefore said to learn: but if there be not such evidence, then such teaching is called persuasion, and begetteth no more in the hearer, than what is in the speaker’s bare opinion. And the signs of two opinions contradictory one to another; namely, affirmation and negation of the same thing, is called controversy: but both affirmations, or both negations, consent in opinion.
3. The infallible sign of teaching exactly, and without error, is this, that no man hath ever taught the contrary: not that few, how few soever, if any; for commonly truth is on the side of a few, rather than of the multitude: but when in opinions and questions considered and discussed by many, it happeneth that not any one of the men that so discussed them differ from another, then it may be justly inferred, they know what they teach, and that otherwise they do not. And this appears most manifestly to them that have considered the divers subjects wherein they have exercised their pens, and the divers ways in which they have proceeded, together with the diversity of the success thereof: for, those men who have taken in hand to consider nothing else but the comparison of magnitudes, numbers, times, and motions, and how their proportions are to one another, have thereby been the authors of all those excellencies by which we differ from such savage people as now inhabit divers places in America; and as have been the inhabitants heretofore of those countries where at this day arts and sciences do most flourish: for, from the studies of these men, have proceeded whatsoever cometh to us for ornament by navigation, and whatsover we have beneficial to human society by the division, distinction, and portraiting the face of the earth; whatsoever also we have by the account of times, and foresight of the course of heaven; whatsoever by measuring distances, planes, and solids of all sorts; and whatsoever either elegant or defensible in building: all which supposed away, what do we differ from the wildest of the Indians? Yet to this day was it never heard of, that there was any controversy concerning any conclusion in this subject; the science whereof hath nevertheless been continually amplified and enriched by the conclusions of most difficult and profound speculation. The reason whereof is apparent to every man that looketh into their writings; for they proceed from most low and humble principles, evident even to the meanest capacity; going on slowly, and with most scrupulous ratiocination; viz. from the imposition of names, they infer the truth of their first propositions; and from two of the first, a third; and from any two of the three, a fourth; and so on, according to the steps of science, mentioned chapter VI. section 4. On the other side, those men who have written concerning the faculties, passions, and manners of men, that is to say, of moral philosophy, and of policy, government, and laws, whereof there be infinite volumes, have been so far from removing doubt and controversy in the questions they have handled, that they have very much multiplied the same: nor doth any man at this day so much as pretend to know more than hath been delivered two thousand years ago by Aristotle: and yet every man thinks that in this subject he knoweth as much as any other; supposing there needeth thereunto no study but that accrueth unto them by natural wit; though they play, or employ their mind otherwise in the purchase of wealth or place. The reason whereof is no other, than that in their writings and discourses they take for principles those opinions which are already vulgarly received, whether true or false; being for the most part false. There is therefore a great deal of difference between teaching and persuading; the sign of this being controversy; the sign of the former, no controversy.
4. There be two sorts of men that commonly be called learned: one is that sort that proceedeth evidently from humble principles, as is described in the last section; and those men are called mathematici: the other are they that take up maxims from their education, and from the authority of men, or of custom, and take the habitual discourse of the tongue for ratiocination; and these are called dogmatici. Now seeing in the last section those we call mathematici are absolved of the crime of breeding controversy, and they that pretend not to learning cannot be accused, the fault lieth altogether in the dogmatics, that is to say, those that are imperfectly learned, and with passion press to have their opinions pass everywhere for truth, without any evident demonstration either from experience, or from places of Scripture of uncontroverted interpretation.
5. The expression of those conceptions which cause in us the experience of good while we deliberate, as also of those which cause our expectation of evil, is that which we call counselling, and is the internal deliberation of the mind concerning what we ourselves are to do or not to do. The consequences of our actions are our counsellors, by alternate succession in the mind. So in the counsel which a man taketh from other men, the counsellors alternately do make appear the consequences of the action, and do not any of them deliberate, but furnish among them all, him that is counselled with arguments whereupon to deliberate with himself.
6. Another use of speech is expression of appetite, intention, and will; as the appetite of knowledge by interrogation; appetite to have a thing done by another, as request, prayer, petition: expressions of our purpose or intention, as promise, which is the affirmation or negation of some action to be done in the future: threatening, which is the promise of evil; and commanding, which is that speech by which we signify to another our appetite or desire to have any thing done, or left undone, for reasons contained in the will itself: for it is not properly said, Sic volo, sic jubeo, without that other clause, Stet pro ratione voluntas: and when the command is a sufficient reason to move us to action, then is that command called a law.
7. Another use of speech is instigation and appeasing, by which we increase or diminish one another’s passion: it is the same thing with persuasion; the difference not being real; for, the begetting of opinion and passion is the same. But whereas in persuasion we aim at getting opinion from passion; here, the end is, to raise passion from opinion. And as in raising an opinion from passion, any premises are good enough to enforce the desired conclusion; so, in raising passion from opinion, it is no matter whether the opinion be true or false, or the narration historical or fabulous; for, not the truth, but the image, maketh passion: and a tragedy, well acted, affecteth no less than a murder.
8. Though words be the signs we have of one another’s opinions and intentions, because the equivocation of them is so frequent according to the diversity of contexture, and of the company wherewith they go, which, the presence of him that speaketh, our sight of his actions, and conjecture of his intentions, must help to discharge us of; it must therefore be extremely hard to find the opinions and meaning of those men that are gone from us long ago, and have left us no other signification thereof than their books, which cannot possibly be understood without history, to discover those aforementioned circumstances, and also without great prudence to observe them.
9. When it happeneth that a man signifieth unto two contradictory opinions, whereof the one is clearly and directly signified, and the other either drawn from that by consequence, or not known to be contradictory to it; then, when he is not present to explicate himself better, we are to take the former for his opinion; for that is clearly signified to be his, and directly; whereas the other might proceed from error in the deduction, or ignorance of the repugnancy. The like also is to be held in two contradictory expressions of a man’s intention and will, for the same reason.
10. Forasmuch as whosoever speaketh to another, intendeth thereby to make him understand what he saith, if he speak unto him either in a language which he that heareth understandeth not, or use any word in other sense than he believeth is the sense of him that heareth, he intendeth also not to make him understand what he saith; which is a contradiction of himself. It is therefore always to be supposed, that he which intendeth not to deceive, alloweth the private interpretation of his speech to him to whom it is addressed.
11. Silence, in him that believeth that the same shall be taken for a sign of his intent, is a sign thereof indeed: for, if he did not consent, the labour of speaking so much as to declare the same, is so little, as it is to be presumed he would have done it.
Thus have we considered the nature of man so far as was requisite for the finding out the first and most simple elements wherein the compositions of politic rules and laws are lastly resolved; which was my present purpose.