cannot in an instant, but in time, and by degrees, quite extinguish
it:
The decay of sense in men waking is not the decay of the motion
made in sense, but an obscuring of it
Much memory, or memory of many things, is called experience. Again,
imagination being only of those things which have been formerly
perceived by sense
The imaginations of them that sleep are those we call dreams.
And seeing dreams are caused by the distemper of some of the inward
parts of the body
The most difficult discerning of a man's dream from his waking
thoughts is, then, when by some accident we observe not that we
have slept
From this ignorance of how to distinguish dreams, and other strong
fancies, from vision and sense, did arise the greatest part of the
religion of the Gentiles in time past,
The imagination that is raised in man (or any other creature endued
with the faculty of imagining) by words, or other voluntary signs,
is that we generally call understanding,
CHAPTER III OF
THE CONSEQUENCE OR TRAIN OF IMAGINATIONS
BY CONSEQUENCE, or train of thoughts, I understand that succession
of one thought to another which is called, to distinguish it from
discourse in words, mental discourse.
When a man thinketh on anything whatsoever, his next thought after
is not altogether so casual as it seems to be.
This train of thoughts, or mental discourse, is of two sorts. The
first is unguided, without design, and inconstant; The second is
more constant, as being regulated by some desire and design.
The train of regulated thoughts is of two kinds: one, when of an
effect imagined we seek the causes or means that produce it; The
other is, when imagining anything whatsoever, we seek all the
possible effects that can by it be produced;
A sign is the event antecedent of the consequent
As prudence is a presumption of the future, contracted from the
experience of time past
There is no other act of man's mind, that I can remember, naturally
planted in him
Whatsoever we imagine is finite. Therefore there is no idea or
conception of anything we call infinite.
CHAPTER IV OF SPEECH
THE INVENTION of printing, though ingenious, compared with the
invention of letters is no great matter.
The general use of speech is to transfer our mental discourse into
verbal, or the train of our thoughts into a train of words,
The manner how speech serveth to the remembrance of the consequence
of causes and effects consisteth in the imposing of names, and the
connexion of them.
By this imposition of names, some of larger, some of stricter
signification, we turn the reckoning of the consequences of things
imagined in the mind into a reckoning of the consequences of
appellations
But the use of words in registering our thoughts is in nothing so
evident as in numbering.
CHAPTER V
OF REASON AND SCIENCE
WHEN man reasoneth, he does nothing else but conceive a sum total,
from addition of parcels; or conceive a remainder, from subtraction
of one sum from another: which, if it be done by words……
The use and end of reason is not the finding of the sum and truth
of one, or a few consequences, remote from the first definitions
and settled significations of names; but to begin at these, and
proceed from one consequence to another.
By this it appears that reason is not, as sense and memory, born
with us; nor gotten by experience only, as prudence is; but
attained by industry
To conclude, the light of humane minds is perspicuous words, but by
exact definitions first snuffed, and purged from ambiguity; reason
is the pace; increase of science, the way; and the benefit of
mankind, the end. And, on the contrary, metaphors, and senseless
and ambiguous words are like ignes fatui; and reasoning upon them
is wandering amongst innumerable absurdities; and their end,
contention and sedition, or contempt.
As much experience is prudence, so is much science sapience.
The signs of science are some certain and infallible; some,
uncertain.
CHAPTER VI
OF THE INTERIOR BEGINNINGS OF VOLUNTARY MOTIONS, COMMONLY CALLED
THE PASSIONS; AND THE SPEECHES BY WHICH THEY ARE
EXPRESSED
THERE be in animals two sorts of motions peculiar to them: One
called vital, begun in generation, and continued without
interruption through their whole life; the other is animal motion,
otherwise called voluntary motion
This endeavour, when it is toward something which causes it, is
called appetite, or desire
That which men desire they are said to love, and to hate those
things for which they have aversion.
But whatsoever is the object of any man's appetite or desire, that
is it which he for his part calleth good; and the object of his
hate and aversion, evil; and of his contempt, vile and
inconsiderable.
As in sense that which is really within us is, as I have said
before, only motion, caused by the action of external objects but
in appearance;
This motion, which is called appetite, and for the appearance of it
delight and pleasure, seemeth to be a corroboration of vital
motion, and a help thereunto;
Pleasure therefore, or delight, is the appearance or sense of
good;
These simple passions called appetite, desire, love, aversion,
hate, joy, and grief have their names for diverse considerations
diversified. At first, when they one succeed another, they are
diversely called from the opinion men have of the likelihood of
attaining what they desire. Secondly, from the object loved or
hated. Thirdly, from the consideration of many of them together.
Fourthly, from the alteration or succession itself.
Therefore of things past there is no deliberation, because
manifestly impossible to be changed;
In deliberation, the last appetite, or aversion, immediately
adhering to the action, or to the omission thereof, is that we call
the will; the act, not the faculty, of willing.
The forms of speech by which the passions are expressed are partly
the same and partly different from those by which we express our
thoughts.
These forms of speech, I say, are expressions or voluntary
significations of our passions: but certain signs they be
not;
Continual success in obtaining those things which a man from time
to time desireth, that is to say, continual prospering, is that men
call felicity;
