world with innumerable gradations from the greatest to the smallest.30

In his theory of sensation, we have already in germ the sensationalism of Locke. Hobbes supposes that the movements of corporeal things communicate themselves to our senses by transmission through the medium of the air, and from thence are continued to the brain, and from the brain finally to the heart.31 To every movement corresponds an answering movement, in the organism, as in external nature. From this principle of reaction Hobbes derives sensation; but it is not the immediate reaction of the external organ that constitutes sensation, but only the movement that starts from the heart, and then returns from the external organ by way of the brain, so that an appreciable time always elapses between the impression and the sensa

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30 De Corpore, iv. 27 (i. 362–364, ed. Molesw.). Here also occurs (p. 364) a very noteworthy passage in respect of method: Agnoscunt mortales magna esse quaedam, etsi finita, ut quae vident ita esse; agnoscunt item infinitam esse posse magnitudinem eorum quae non vident: medium vero esse inter infinitum et eorum quae vident cogitantve maximum, non statim nec nisi multa eruditione persuadentur." When, indeed, the theoretical question of divisibility, and of the relativity of greatness and smallness, no longer comes into view, Hobbes has no objection to make to describing the "corpuscula" as "atomi," as, for instance, in his theory of gravitation, De Corpore, iv. 30 (p. 415).

31 A more particular inquiry into the doctrine of 'conatus' as the form of motion here referred to is beyond our present object. For a fuller exposition see in Baumann, Die Lehren von Raum, Zeit und Mathem., i. S. 321 ff. The special fault found with the theory at S. 327, that the sensation is only produced by the conatus returning from the heart, seems to me to be not wholly justified; for even although, according to Hobbes's theory,

a reaction against the impact of the object takes place instantaneously in the part first acted upon, yet this by no means hinders the propagation of the motion under ever new actions and reactions towards the inward parts, where the motion can become regressive. Let us suppose, for example, for simplicity's sake, a series of elastic balls placed in a straight line, A, B, C, . . . N, and let us suppose that A impinges directly upon B, the impulse being then propagated through c and so on to N; let N strike at right angles against a fixed wall, then the motion will return right through the whole series, without being hindered by the circumstance that sometime before B has also reacted against A, thus limiting its movement. It must, however, of course, be allowed to the originator of the hypothesis to identify with the sensation not the first (limiting) reaction of B against a, but the returning impact from B to A, a view which, there can be no doubt, suits the facts incomparably better. Comp. the remarks in § 4 (i. p. 319 sq., ed. Molesw.) on the effect of an interrup tion of the communication.

tion. By means of this regressiveness of the movement of sensation, which is an endeavour' (conatus) towards the objects, is explained the transposition outwards of the images of sense.32 The sensation is identical with the image of sense (phantasma), and this again is identical with the motion of the conatus' towards the objects; not merely occasioned by it. And thus Hobbes by a bold phrase hews asunder the Gordian knot of the question how the sensation as a subjective condition is related to the movement; but the matter is thereby made none the clearer.

The subject of the sensation is the man as a whole; the object is the thing which is felt: the images, however, or the sense-qualities, by means of which we perceive the thing, are not the thing itself, but a motion originating within us. And thus there does not proceed from shining bodies any light, or from sounding bodies any noise, but only certain forms of motion from each. Light and sound are sensations, and first arise as such within us as reactionary notion proceeding from the heart. From this results the sensationalistic consequence that all so-called sense-qualities, as such, belong not to things, but originate only in ourselves. Coupled with this, however, is the Materialistic principle that even human sensation is nothing but the motion of corporeal particles, occasioned by the external motion of things. Hobbes never thought of abandoning this Materialistic principle in favour of a consistent Sensationalism, because, like Demokritos in antiquity, he started from the mathematical and physical consideration of external things. Therefore his system remains an essentially Materialistic system, in spite of the germs of Sensationalism which it bears within it. With regard to his view of the universe, Hobbes con

32 De Corpore, iv. xxv. 2 (i. p. 318): "Ut cum conatus ille ad intima ultimus actus sit eorum qui fiunt in actu sensionis, tum demum ex ea reactione aliquandiu durante ipsum

VOL. I.

existit phantasma; quod propter conatum versus externa semper videtur tanquam aliquid situm extra organum."

T

fines himself exclusively to the phenomena which are knowable, and can be explained by the law of causality. Everything of which we can know nothing he resigns to theologians. A remarkable paradox is contained in the doctrine of the corporeality of God, which is, of course, since it contradicts an Article of the Anglican Church, not exactly asserted, but only suggested as a very possible inference.33 If one could have overheard a confidential conversation between Gassendi and Hobbes, one might perhaps have caught a dispute on the question whether the all-animating heat or the all-embracing ether must be regarded as the Deity.

33 Compare as to this especially the Appendix to the "Leviathan," c. i., where it is insisted that everything possessed of real independent existence is body. Then it is suggested that even all spirits, such as the air, are corporeal, although it may be with infinite gradations of fineness. Finally, it is pointed out that such expressions as "incorporeal substance" or "immaterial substance," are nowhere found in Holy Scripture. It is true that the first of the Thirtynine Articles teaches that God is without "body" or "parts," and, therefore, this will not be expressly denied; but the twentieth Article says that the Church may require nothing to be believed that is not founded upon Holy Writ (iii. 537 ff.). The result of this obvious contradiction, then, is, that Hobbes insists, at every opportunity, upon the incomprehensibility of God, attributes to Him only negative predicates, and so on; while, by the citation of authorities such as Tertullian (iii. 561), by frequent discussions of Biblical expressions, and especially by the cunning employment of premisses whose final conclusion is left to be drawn by the reader, he tries everywhere to excite the feeling that the

idea of God would be very intelligible if we conceived Him either as a body or as a phantasm, that is, nothing; and that the whole incomprehensibleness is due to this, that we have ever been bidden to speak of God as "incorporeal." Comp., inter alia, Opera, iii. 87, 260 sq., 282 (here, in particular, the words are very clear: "Cum natura Dei incomprehensibilis sit, et nomina ei attribuenda sint, non tam ad naturam eius, quam ad honorem, quem illi exhibere debemus congruentia."

The quintessence of Hobbes's whole theology is probably, however, most clearly expressed in a passage in the "De Homine," iii. 15, Op. ii. 347 sq., where it is bluntly said that God rules only through nature, and that His will is only announced through the State. We must not indeed conclude from this that Hobbes identified God with the sum of nature-pantheistically. He seems rather to have conceived as God a part of the universe-controlling, universally spread, uniform, and by its motion determining mechanically the motion of the whole. As the history of the world is an outflow of natural laws, so the power of the State is, as the actually effective might, an outflow of the divine will.

CHAPTER III.

THE LATER WORKINGS OF MATERIALISM IN ENGLAND.

THERE is almost a full century of interval between the modern development of Materialistic systems, and between that reckless authorship of a De la Mettrie, who dwelt with special pleasure on just those aspects of Materialism which must be repugnant to the Christian world. It is true, indeed, that even Gassendi and Hobbes had not entirely avoided the ethical consequences of their systems; but both had contrived a means of making their peace with the Church-Gassendi by his superficiality, Hobbes by an arbitrary and unnatural inference. If there is, in this respect, a fundamental distinction between the Materialists of the seventeenth and those of the eighteenth century, yet the chasm between them, apart from purely ecclesiastical dogma, is by far the broadest in the sphere of ethic. Whilst De la Mettrie, quite in the manner of the philosophical dilettanti of ancient Rome, with a frivolous complacency made desire the principle of life, and by his low conception still tainted the memory of Epikuros after thousands of years, Gassendi had in every way brought forward the more serious and deeper aspect of the Epikurean ethic. Hobbes, though only after curious subterfuges, ended by adopting the current semi-Christian, semi- bourgeois morality, which he regarded indeed as narrow, but as justifiably narrow. Both lived very simply and honestly, according to the ordinary ideas of their time.

In spite of this great distinction, the Materialism of the seventeenth century, with all its affinities even to the

'Système de la Nature,' forms one connected chain, while the present, although again between De la Mettrie and Vogt or Moleschott there is just such an interval of a century, must be regarded as something entirely independent. The philosophy of Kant, and still more the great scientific achievements of the last few decades, demand this special estimate as distinctly from the standpoint of theoretical science, while, on the other hand, a glance at the material conditions and the social circumstances must lead us to embrace in an inner unity the whole period down to the French Revolution.

If we first direct our attention to the state and civil society, we shall perceive an analogy between those two earlier periods which markedly separates them from the present. Hobbes and Gassendi lived at the courts, or in the aristocratic society of England and France. De la Mettrie was protected by Frederic the Great. The Materialism of both the past centuries found its support in the worldly aristocracy, and the difference of its relation to the Church is partly a result of the different attitudes taken up by the secular aristocracy and the courts towards the Church. The Materialism of our own times has, on the contrary, a thoroughly popular tendency; it rests upon nothing but the right to express its convictions and the receptivity of a great public, to whom the results of science, variously combined with Materialistic doctrine, are made accessible in the most convenient shape; and therefore, to understand the ever-important transition from the Materialism of the seventeenth to that of the eighteenth century, we must keep before us the relations of the higher classes of society, and the changes which were at this time taking place amongst them.

One most striking feature was the peculiar direction of all the efforts that appeared in the second half of the seventeenth century in England. After the restoration of the monarchy, there had there ensued a violent reaction against the eccentric and hypocritical austerity of