singular passions are parts of the seditious roaring of a troubled nation." Even Mr. Burke did not disdain to borrow one of Hobbes' images. The author of the Leviathan' compares those who attempt to reform a decayed commonwealth to "the foolish daughters of Pelias who desiring to renew the youth of their decrepit father did by the counsel of Medea, cut him in pieces and boil him, together with strange herbs, but made not of him a new man." I think this is better expressed than the same allusion in Burke, which is I dare say well known to my readers. I shall not here enter into the doctrine of Liberty and Necessity, which Hobbes has stated with great force and precision as a general question of cause and effect, and without any particular reference to his mechanical theory of the mind, as I shall fully investigate this subject in my next Essay.. I have thus taken a review of the metaphysical writings of Hobbes, as far as was necessary to establish what I at first proposed, namely, the general conformity, and almost entire coincidence between his opinions, and the principles of the modern system of philosophy. The praise of originality at least, of boldness and vigor of mind, belongs to him. The strength of reason which his application of a general principle to explain almost all the phenomena of human nature implies, can hardly be surpassed. The truth of the system is another question, which I shall hereafter proceed to consider. I will first, however, distinctly enumerate the leading principles of this philosophy, as they are to be found in Hobbes, and in the latest writers of the same School. They are, I conceive, as follows: 1. That all our ideas are derived from external objects, by means of the senses alone. 2. That as nothing exists out of the mind but matter and motion, so it is itself with all its operations nothing but matter and motion. 3. That thoughts are single, or that we can think of only one object at a time. In other words, that there is no comprehensive power or faculty of understanding in the mind. 4. That we have no general or abstract ideas. 5. That the only principle of connexion between one thought and another is association, or their previous connexion in sense. 6. That reason and understanding depend entirely on the mechanism of language. 7 and 8. That the sense of pleasure and pain is the sole spring of action, and self-interest the source of all our affections. 9. That the mind acts from a mechanical or physical necessity, over which it has no control, and consequently is not a moral or accountable agent. The manner of stating and reasoning upon this point is the only circumstance of importance in which modern writers differ from Hobbes. 10. That there is no difference in the natural capacities of men, the mind being originally passive to all impressions alike, and becoming whatever it is from circumstances. All of these positions it is my intention to oppose to the utmost of my ability. Except the first, they are most or all of them either denied or doubtfully admitted by Locke. And as it is his admission of the first principle which has opened a door, directly or indirectly, to all the rest, I shall devote the Essay next but one to an examination of the account which he gives of the origin of our ideas from sensation. It may perhaps be thought, that the neglect into which Hobbes's metaphysical opinions have fallen was originally owing to the obloquy excited by the misanthropy and despotical tendency of his political writings. But it seems to me that he has been almost as hardly dealt with in the one case as in the other. As to his principles of government, this may at least be said for them, that they are in form and appearance very much the same with those detailed long after in Rousseau's Social Contract,' and evidently suggested the plan of that work, which has never been considered as a defence of tyranny. The author indeed requires an absolute submission in the subject to the laws, but then it is to be in consequence of his own consent to obey them. Every man is at least supposed to be his own lawgiver. Secondly as to the misanthropy with which he is charged, for having made fear the actual foundation and cement of civil society, he has I think made his own apology very satisfactorily in these words: "It may seem strange to some man that hath not well weighed these things, that nature should thus dissociate and render men apt to invade and destroy one another; and he may therefore, not, trusting to the inference made from the passions, desire perhaps to have the same confirmed by experience. Let him therefore consider with himself-when taking a journey he arms himself and seeks to go well accompanied; when going to sleep he locks his doors; when even in his house, he locks his chests, and this when he knows there be laws and public officers, armed to revenge all injuries that shall be done him ;-what opinion I say, he has of his fellow subjects when he rides armed, of his fellow citizens when he locks his doors, and of his children and servants, when he locks his chests. Does he not then accuse mankind as much by his actions as I do by my words? Yet neither of us accuse man's nature in it."-Leviathan, p. 62. It is true the bond of civil government according to his account is very different from Burke's "soft collar of social esteem," and takes away the sentimental part of politics. But I confess I see nothing liberal in this "order of thoughts," as Hobbes elsewhere expresses it," the crime, the officer, the prison, the judge and the gallows," which is nevertheless a good description of the nature and end of political institutions. The true reason of the fate which this author's writings met with was that his views of things were too original and comprehensive to be immediately understood, without passing through the several successive generations of commentators and interpreters. Ignorance of another's meaning is a sufficient cause of fear, and fear produces hatred: hence arose the rancor and suspicion of his adversaries, who, to quote some fine lines of Spenser, "Stood all astonished like a sort of steers 'Mongst whom some beast of strange and foreign race ESSAY VII. ON LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. In this Essay I shall give the best account I can of the question concerning liberty and necessity from the writings of others, and afterwards add a few remarks of my own on the explanation of the terms employed in this controversy. Of Mr. Hobbes' discourse on this subject, I should be nearly disposed to say with Gassendi, when another work of his, 'De Cive,' was presented to him, "This treatise, though small in bulk, is in my judgment the very marrow of philosophy." In order to give a clear and satisfactory view of the question, I shall be obliged to repeat some things I have before stated, for which the importance of the subject as well as other circumstances will, I hope be a sufficient excuse. The doctrine of necessity is stated by this author with great force and precision as a general question of cause and effect, and with scarcely any particular reference to his mechanical theory of the mind. From this naked simple view of the matter, I cannot consistently with truth withhold my full and entire assent. The ground-work the pure basis of the doctrine is in my opinion incontestible; it cannot be denied without overturning all the rules of science, as well as the plainest dictates of the understanding: whoever it attacks there in its strong hold, will only injure the cause he espouses. It is that rock upon which whoever falls will be dashed to pieces. But though I cannot pretend to undermine the foundation, yet I may attempt to shake some parts of the superstructure, and to clear away the crust of materialism which has grown over it. In my opinion, the representations which have commonly been given of the subject by the writers on both sides of the argument are almost equally erroneous, and their opposite conclusions built on an equal misconception of the true principle of necessity. By the principle of moral or philosophical necessity is meant then that the mind is invariably governed by certain laws which determine all its operations; or in other words, that the regular succession of cause and effect is not confined to mere matter, while the impulses of the will are left quite unaccounted for, self-caused, perfectly contingent and fantastical. We in general attribute those things to chance the causes of which we do not understand, both in mind and matter. But as there is a greater latitude and inconstancy in the one than in the other, insomuch that we ean hardly ever predict with certainty the effect of particular motives on the mind, the opinion of chance, arbitrary inclination, or self-determina tion had gained much deeper root with respect to the other operations of mind than to those of matter. The fallacy of this opinion Hobbes has exposed in a masterly, and I think unanswerable manner, and without running into those paradoxical conclusions from the first position which later necessarians have deduced from it. He affirms that necessity is perfectly consistent with human liberty; that is, that the most strict and inviolable connexion of cause and effect does not prevent the full, free, and unrestrained development of certain powers in the agent, or take away the distinction between the nature of virtue and vice, praise and blame, reward and punishment, but is the foundation of all moral reasoning. Except Dr. Jonathan Edwards, he is the only professed necessarian that I know of who has not been led, by the customary use of language, to quit the original definition of the term, and to slide from a philosophical into a vulgar and practical necessity. But I will state his reasoning in his own words, which are the best. They are as follows: "My opinion about Liberty and Necessity. 66 First, I conceive that when it cometh into a man's mind to do or not to do some certain action, if he have no time to deliberate, the doing it or abstaining necessarily follows the present thought he hath of the good or evil consequence thereof to himself; as, for example, in sudden anger the action shall follow the thought of revenge; in sudden fear, the thought of escape; also when a man hath time to deliberate, but deliberateth not, because never any thing appeared that could make him doubt of the consequence, the action follows his opinion of the goodness or harm of it. These actions I call voluntary, because those actions that follow immediately the last appetite are voluntary, are here: where is only one appetite that one is the last. Secondly, I conceive when a man deliberates whether he shall do a thing or not do it, that he does nothing else but consider whether it be better for himself to do it or not to do it; and to consider an action, is to imagine the consequences of it both good and evil; from whence is to be inferred, that deliberation is nothing else but alternate imagination of the good and evil sequels of an action, or (which is the same thing) alternate hope and fear, or alternate appetite to do or quit the action of which he deliberateth. Thirdly, I conceive that in all deliberations, that is to say, in all alternate succession of contrary appetites, the last is that which we call the will, and is immediately next before the doing of the action, or next before the doing of it become impossible. All other appetites to do, and to quit, that come upon a man during his deliberations, are called intentions, and inclinations, but not wills, there being but one will, which also in this case may be called the last will, though the intentions change often. Fourthly, I conceive that those actions which a man is said to do upon deliberation, are said to be voluntary, and done upon choice and election, so that voluntary action, and action proceeding from election is the same thing; and that of a voluntary agent, it is all one to say, he is free, and to say, he hath not made an end of deliberating. Fifthly, I conceive liberty to be rightly defined in this manner: liberty is the absence of all the impediments to action that are not contained in the nature and intrinsical quality of the agent, as for example, the water is said to descend freely, or to have liberty to descend by the channel of the river, because there is no impediment that way, but not across, because the banks are impediments, and though the water cannot ascend, yet men never say it wants the liberty to ascend, but the faculty or power, because the impediment is in the nature of the water, and intrinsical. So also we say, he that is tied, wants the liberty to go, because the impediment is not in him, but in his bands; whereas we say not so of him that is sick or lame, because the impediment is in himself. Sixthly, I conceive that nothing taketh beginning from itself, but from the action of some other immediate agent without itself. And that therefore, when first a man hath an appetite or will to something, to which im mediately before he had no appetite nor will, the cause of his will, is not the will itself, but something else not in his own disposing; so that whereas it is out of controversy, that of voluntary actions the will is the necessary cause, and by this which is said, the will is also caused by other things whereof it disposeth not, it followeth, that voluntary actions have all of them necessary causes, and therefore are necessitated. Seventhly, I hold that to be a sufficient cause, to which nothing is wanting that is needful to the producing of the effect. The same also is a necessary cause. For if it be possible that a sufficient cause shall not bring forth the effect, then there wanteth somewhat which was needful to the producing of it, and so the cause was not sufficient; but if it be impossible that a sufficient cause should not produce the effect, then is a sufficient cause a necessary cause (for that is said to produce an effect necessarily that cannot but produce it ;) hence it is manifest, that whatsoever is produced, is produced necessarily for whatsoever is produced hath had a sufficient cause to produce it, or else it had not been; and therefore also voluntary actions necessitated. 66 Lastly, I hold that the ordinary definition of a free agent, namely, that a free agent is that, which, when all things are present which are needful to produce the effect, can nevertheless not produce it, implies a contradiction, and is nonsense; being as much as to say, the cause may be sufficient, that is to say necessary, and yet the effect shall not follow. "MY REASONS.-For the first five points, wherein it is explicated-1. what spontaneity is; 2. what deliberation is; 3. what will, propension and appetite are; 4. what a free-agent is; and 5. what liberty is; there can no other proof be offered but every man's own experience, by reflection on himself, and remembering what he himself meaneth when he saith an action is spontaneous: a man deliberates: such is his will: that agent or that action is free. Now he that reflecteth so on himself, cannot but be satisfied, that deliberation is the consideration of the good or evil sequels of an action to come; that by spontaneity is meant inconsiderate action (or else nothing is meant by it); that will is the last act of our deliberation; that a free-agent is he that can do if he will, and forbear if he will; and that liberty is the absence of external impediments. But, to those that out of custom speak not what they conceive, but what they hear, and are not able, or will not take the pains to consider what they think when they hear such words, no argument can be sufficient; because experience and matter of fact is not verified by other men's arguments, but by every man's own sense and memory. For example, how can it be proved that to love a thing and to think it good is all one, to a man that hath not marked his own meaning by those words? or how can it be proved that eternity is not: |