operations of the intellect are only a continuation of the impulses existing in matter, or that all the thoughts and conceptions of the mind are nothing more nor less than various modifications of the original impressions of things on a being endued with sensation or simple perception. This system considers ideas merely as they are caused by external objects, acting on the organs of sense, and tries to account for them on that hypothesis solely. It is upon this principle of excluding the understanding as a distinct faculty or power from all share in its own operations, that the whole of Hobbes's reasoning proceeds. Let us see what he makes of it.

The first part of the 'Leviathan,' entitled "Of Man," begins in this manner:

CHAPTER I.-OF SENSE.-"Concerning the thoughts of man, I will consider them, first singly, and afterwards in train, or dependence upon one another. Singly, they are every one a representation or appearance of some quality or other accident of a body without us; which is commonly called an object: Which object worketh on the eyes, ears, and other parts of man's body; and by diversity of working, produceth diversity of appearances.

"The Original of them all is that which we

call SENSE: For there is no conception in a man's mind which hath not at first, totally or by parts, been begotten upon the organs of sense. The rest are derived from that original.

"The cause of sense is the external body or object which presseth the organ proper to each sense, either immediately as in the taste and touch, or mediately as in seeing, hearing, and smelling which pressure by the mediation of nerves, and other strings and membranes of the body, continued inwards to the Brain and Heart, causeth there a resistance or counter-pressure, or endeavour of the heart to deliver itself: which endeavour, because outward, seemeth to be some matter without. And this seeming or fancy is that which men call sense: and consisteth to the eye, in a light or colour figured; to the ear, in a sound; to the nostril, in an odour; to the tongue and palate, in a savour, and to the rest of the body in heat, cold, hardness, softness, and such other qualities, as we discern by feeling. All which qualities called sensible are in the object that causeth them but so many several motions of the matter by which it presseth our organs diversely. Neither in us that are pressed are they any thing else but divers motions; for motion produceth nothing but motion. But their appearance to us is fancy, the same

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waking as dreaming. And as pressing, rubbing, or striking the eye maketh us fancy a light, and pressing the ear produceth a din, so do the bodies also we see or hear produce the same by their strong, though unobserved action. For if those colours and sounds were in the bodies or objects that cause them, they could not be severed from them, as by glasses and in echoes by reflection we see they are: where we know the thing we see is in one place, the appearance in another, and though at some certain distance, the real and very object seems in vested with the fancy it begets in us; yet still the object is one thing, the image or fancy is another. So that sense in all cases is nothing else but original fancy; caused, as I have said, by the pressure, that is, by the motion of external things upon our eyes, ears, and other organs thereunto ordained.

"But the Philosophy-schools, through all the universities of Christendom, grounded upon certain texts of Aristotle, teach another doctrine; and say, For the cause of vision, that the thing seen sendeth forth on every side a visible species, (in English) a visible show, apparition, aspect, or being seen; the receiving whereof into the eye, is seeing. And for the cause of hearing, that the thing heard sendeth forth an audible species, that is, an audible aspect, or audible being seen; which enter

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ing at the ear, maketh hearing. Nay, for the cause of understanding also, they say the thing understood sendeth forth an intelligible species, that is an intelligible being seen; which coming into the understanding, makes us understand. say not this as disapproving the use of universities: but because I am to speak hereafter of their office in a common-wealth, I must let you see on all occasions by the way, what things would be amended in them; amongst which the frequency of insignificant speech is one."-Leviathan, p. 4. Thus far our author. It is evident that in this account he has laid the foundation of Berkeley's ideal system, though he does not seem any where to have gone the whole length of that doctrine. He has entered more at large into this point in theDiscourse of Human Nature,' published in 1640, ten years before the 'Leviathan'; and as the subject is curious, and treated in a very decisive way, I will quote the concluding passage, which is a recapitulation of the rest.

"As colour is not inherent in the object, but an effect thereof upon us, caused by such motion in the object as hath been described; so neither is sound in the thing we hear, but in ourselves. One manifest sign thereof is, that as a man may see, so also he may hear double or treble, by multiplication of echoes, which echoes are sounds

as well as the original, and not being in one and the same place, cannot be inherent in the body that maketh them. And to proceed to the rest of the senses, it is apparent enough that the smell and taste of the same thing are not the same to every man, and therefore are not in the thing smelt or tasted, but in the men. So likewise the heat we feel from the fire is manifestly in us, and is quite different from the heat which is in the fire for our heat is pleasure or pain, according as it is great or moderate; but in the coal there is no such thing. By this the fourth and last proposition is proved; viz. That as in vision, so also in conceptions that arise from other senses, the subject of their inherence is not in the object, but in the sentient. And from hence also it followeth that whatsoever accidents or qualities our senses make us think there be in the world, they be not there, but are seeming and apparitions only: the things that really are in the world without us, are those motions by which these seemings are caused. And this is the great deception of sense, which also is to be by sense corrected: for as sense telleth me, when I see directly, that the colour seemeth to be in the object; so also sense telleth me when I see by reflection, that colour is not in the object."Human Nature, chap. ii, p. 9.