qualities in objects that correspond to our sensations are motions. The first law of motion is
stated, and is immediately applied to psychology: imagination is a decaying sense, both being
motions. Imagination when asleep is dreaming; the religions of the gentiles came of not
distinguishing dreams from waking life. (The rash reader may apply the same argument to the
Christian religion, but Hobbes is much too cautious to do so himself. * ) Belief that dreams are
prophetic is a delusion; so is the belief in witchcraft and in ghosts.
The succession of our thoughts is not arbitrary, but governed by laws--sometimes those of
association, sometimes those depending upon a purpose in our thinking. (This is important as
an application of determinism to psychology.)
Hobbes, as might be expected, is an out-and-out nominalist. There is, he says, nothing universal
but names, and without words we could not conceive any general ideas. Without language,
there would be no truth or falsehood, for "true" and "false" are attributes of speech.
He considers geometry the one genuine science so far created. Reasoning is of the nature of
reckoning, and should start from definitions. But it is necessary to avoid self-contradictory
notions in definitions, which is not usually done in philosophy. "Incorporeal substance," for
instance, is nonsense. When it is objected that God is an incorporeal substance, Hobbes has two
answers: first, that God is not an object of philosophy; second, that many philosophers have
thought God corporeal. All error in general propositions, he says, comes from absurdity (i.e.,
self-contradiction); he gives as examples of absurdity the idea of free will, and of cheese having
the accidents of bread. (We know that, according to the Catholic faith, the accidents of bread
can inhere in a substance that is not bread.)
In this passage Hobbes shows an old-fashioned rationalism. Kepler had arrived at a general
proposition: "Planets go round the sun in ellipses"; but other views, such as those of Ptolemy,
are not logically absurd. Hobbes has not appreciated the use of induction for arriving at general
laws, in spite of his admiration for Kepler and Galileo.
As against Plato, Hobbes holds that reason is not innate, but is developed by industry.
He comes next to a consideration of the passions. "Endeavour"
* Elsewhere he says that the heathen gods were created by human fear, but that our God is
the First Mover.