[Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes]@TWC D-Link bookLeviathan CHAPTER V 5/8
And therefore The second cause of Absurd assertions, I ascribe to the giving of names of Bodies, to Accidents; or of Accidents, to Bodies; As they do, that say, Faith Is Infused, or Inspired; when nothing can be Powred, or Breathed into any thing, but body; and that, Extension is Body; that Phantasmes are Spirits, &c. The third I ascribe to the giving of the names of the Accidents of Bodies Without Us, to the Accidents of our Own Bodies; as they do that say, the Colour Is In The Body; The Sound Is In The Ayre, &c. The fourth, to the giving of the names of Bodies, to Names, or Speeches; as they do that say, that There Be Things Universall; that A Living Creature Is Genus, or A Generall Thing, &c. The fifth, to the giving of the names of Accidents, to Names and Speeches; as they do that say, The Nature Of A Thing Is In Its Definition; A Mans Command Is His Will; and the like. The sixth, to the use of Metaphors, Tropes, and other Rhetoricall figures, in stead of words proper.
For though it be lawfull to say, (for example) in common speech, The Way Goeth, Or Leadeth Hither, Or Thither, The Proverb Sayes This Or That (whereas wayes cannot go, nor Proverbs speak;) yet in reckoning, and seeking of truth, such speeches are not to be admitted. The seventh, to names that signifie nothing; but are taken up, and learned by rote from the Schooles, as Hypostatical, Transubstantiate, Consubstantiate, Eternal-now, and the like canting of Schoole-men. To him that can avoyd these things, it is not easie to fall into any absurdity, unlesse it be by the length of an account; wherein he may perhaps forget what went before.
For all men by nature reason alike, and well, when they have good principles.
For who is so stupid, as both to mistake in Geometry, and also to persist in it, when another detects his error to him? Science By this it appears that Reason is not as Sense, and Memory, borne with us; nor gotten by Experience onely; as Prudence is; but attayned by Industry; first in apt imposing of Names; and secondly by getting a good and orderly Method in proceeding from the Elements, which are Names, to Assertions made by Connexion of one of them to another; and so to syllogismes, which are the Connexions of one Assertion to another, till we come to a knowledge of all the Consequences of names appertaining to the subject in hand; and that is it, men call SCIENCE.
And whereas Sense and Memory are but knowledge of Fact, which is a thing past, and irrevocable; Science is the knowledge of Consequences, and dependance of one fact upon another: by which, out of that we can presently do, we know how to do something els when we will, or the like, another time; Because when we see how any thing comes about, upon what causes, and by what manner; when the like causes come into our power, wee see how to make it produce the like effects. Children therefore are not endued with Reason at all, till they have attained the use of Speech: but are called Reasonable Creatures, for the possibility apparent of having the use of Reason in time to come.
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