no one doubts of. But that when a thing is in motion it will eternally be in motion, unless somewhat else stay it, though the reason be the same, namely that nothing can change itself, is not so easily assented to. For men measure not only other men but all other things by themselves; and, because they find themselves subject after motion to pain and lassitude, think every thing else grows weary of motion, and seeks repose of its own accord; little considering whether it be not some other motion wherein that desire of rest, they find in themselves, consisteth." Imagination Hobbes defines as a "conception remaining and by little and little decaying from and after the act of sense." 'Imagination, therefore, is but decaying sense." The reader must not here understand by imagination any thing more than the retaining of an image of the object, after the object is removed. It is the term used by Hobbes to express what James Mill happily called Ideation. Sense, Sensation; ideas, Ideation. Hobbes says, sense, Sensation; images, Imagination.

...

The materialism of Hobbes's theory does not consist merely in his language (as is the case with some philosophers-Locke, for instance); it lies at the very root of the theory. Thus, he says, we have sensations and we have images-ideas. Whence those images? "When a body is once in motion it moveth, unless something hinder it, eternally; and whatsoever hindereth it, cannot in an instant, but in time and by degrees, quite extinguish it; and as we see in the water, though the wind cease, the waves give not over rolling for a long time after: so also it happeneth in that motion which is made in the internal parts of man; then, when he sees, dreams, etc. For after the object is removed, or the eye shut, we still retain an image of the thing seen, though more obscure than when we see it. . . . The decay of sense in men waking is not the decay of the motion made in sense, but an obscuring of it, in such manner as the light of the sun obscureth the light of the stars; which stars do no less exercise their virtue, by which they are visible, in the day than in the night. But because amongst many strokes which our eyes, ears,

and other organs receive from external bodies, the predominant only is sensible; therefore the light of the sun being predominant, we are not affected with the action of the stars." This illustration is very happy; but it only serves to bring out into stronger relief the materialism of the theory. He has told us what Imagination is; let us now learn what is Memory. "This decaying sense, when we would express the thing itself, I mean fancy itself, we call imagination, as I have said before; but when we would express the decay, and signify that the sense is fading, old, and past, it is called memory. So that imagination and memory are but one thing, which for divers considerations hath divers names." Mr. Hallam objects to this, and says that it is very evident that imagination and memory are distinguished by something more than their names. Truly, by us; but not by Hobbes; he evidently uses the word imagination in a more generical sense than we use it: he means by it Ideation. Thus he calls dreams "the imagination of them that sleep." It is that state of the mind which remains when the objects which agitated it by sensations are removed: the mind is then not so agitated, but neither is it calm; and he compares that state to the gentle rolling of the waves after the wind hath ceased.

Let this be distinctly borne in mind: Hobbes sees nothing in the intellect but what was previously in the sense. Sensations, and the traces which they leave (i. e. images), form the simple elements of all knowledge; the various commixtures of these elements form the various intellectual faculties. We may now open at the third chapter of the Leviathan. In it he propounded, as something quite simple and obvious, the very important law of association of ideas.* He states it with great clearness and thorough mastery, though he evidently was quite unaware of its extensive application.

"When a man thinketh," he says, "on any thing whatsoever, his next thought after is not altogether so casual as it seems to

* See Sir W. Hamilton's Dissertation affixed to Reid's Works, p. 898, for a history of this law of association.

be. Not every thought to every thought succeeds indifferently. But as we have no imagination whereof we have not formerly had sense in whole or in parts, so we have no transition from one imagination to another whereof we never had the like before in our senses. The reason whereof is this: all fancies (i. e. images) are motions within us, relicts of those made in sense; and those motions that immediately succeed one another in the sense continue also together after the sense; insomuch as the former coming again to take place and be predominant, the latter followeth by coherence of the matter moved, in such manner as water upon a plain table is drawn which way any one part of it is guided by the finger."

The materialism here is distinct enough. He continues, in excellent style: "This train of thoughts, or mental discourse, is of two sorts. The first is unguided, without design, and inconstant, wherein there is no passionate thought to govern and direct those that follow to itself, as the end and scope of some desire or other passion; in which case the thoughts are said to wander, and seem impertinent one to another, as in a dream. Such are commonly the thoughts of men that are not only without company, but also without care of any thing; though even then their thoughts are as busy as at other times, but without harmony; as the sound which a lute out of tune would yield to any man; or in tune, to one that could not play. And yet in this wild ranging of the mind, a man may ofttimes perceive the way of it, and the dependence of one thought upon another. For in a discourse of our present civil war, what would seem more impertinent than to ask, as one did, what was the value of a Roman penny? Yet the coherence to me was manifest enough. For the thought of the war introduced the thought of delivering up the King to his enemies; the thought of that brought in the thought of the delivering up of Christ; and that again the thought of the thirty pence, which was the price of that treason; and thence easily followed that malicious question, and all this in a moment of time; for thought is quick."

"For thought is quick." This is the simple pregnant comment, justly deemed sufficient. It is no purpose of this history to dwell upon literary merits; "but the style," as Buffon says, "is the man," ,"* and occasionally we are forced to notice it. The plain direct remark with which Hobbes concludes the above passage, would, in the hands of many moderns, have run somewhat thus: "How wonderful is thought! how mighty! how mysterious! In its lightning speed it traverses all space, and makes the past present." Hobbes, with a few simple, direct words, produces a greater impression than would all the swelling pomp of a passage bristling with notes of exclamation. This is the secret of his style. It is also the characteristic of his speculations. Whatever faults they may have, they have no vagueness, no pretended profundity. As much of the truth as he has clearly seen he clearly exhibits: what he has not seen he does not pretend to see.

One important deduction from his principles he has drawn: "Whatsoever we imagine is finite. Therefore there is no idea, no conception of any thing we call infinite. No man can have in his mind an image of infinite magnitude, nor conceive infinite swiftness, infinite time, or infinite power. When we say that any thing is infinite, we signify only that we are not able to conceive the ends and bounds of the thing named, having no conception of the thing, but of our own inability. And therefore the name of God is used not to make us conceive him, for he is incomprehensible, and his greatness and power are inconceivable, but that we may honor him. Also, because whatsoever we con

* I leave this passage as it originally stood, for the sake of correcting a universal error. I have since detected it to be an error by the simple process of reading Buffon's actual words, which some French writer misquoted from memory, and which thousands have repeated without misgiving, although the phrase is an absurdity. The phrase occurs in Buffon's Discours de Réception à l'Académie, where speaking of style as that alone capable of conferring immortality on works, because the matter was prepared by preceding ages, and must soon become common property, whereas style remains a part of the man himself; he adds, "Ces choses sont hors de l'homme; le style est de l'homme même." There is immense difference between saying le style c'est l'homme, and le style est de l'homme.

ceive has been perceived first by sense, either all at once or by parts, a man can have no thought representing any thing not subject to Sense."

This is frank, but is it true? On Hobbes's principles it is irresistible. His error lies in assuming that all our thoughts must be images. So far is this from being true, that not even all our sensations are capable of forming images. What images are given by the sensations of heat or cold, of music or of taste?

Every man's consciousness will assure him that thoughts are not always images. It will also assure him that he has the idea, notion, conception, figment (or whatever name he may give the thought) of Infinity. If he attempts to form an image of it, that image will of course be finite: it would not otherwise be an image. But he can think of it; he can reason of it. It is a thought. It is in his mind; though how it got there may be a question. The incompleteness of Hobbes's psychology lies in the inability to answer this question. If the maxim he adopts be true, nihil est in intellectu quod non prius fuerit in sensu, the question is insoluble; or rather the question itself is a practical refutation of the maxim.

We insist upon Hobbes's materialism, the better to prepare the reader for a correct appreciation of Locke, one of the most misrepresented of plain writers. Hobbes, in the sixth chapter of his Human Nature, has very carefully defined what he means by knowledge. "There is a story somewhere," he says, "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. Albans; and that the Duke of Gloucester being there, to be satisfied of the truth of the miracle, asked the man, What color 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 colors, 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.