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Logic, Metaphysics, and the Natural Sociability of Mankind, ed. James Moore and Michael Silverthorne, texts translated from the Latin by Michael Silverthorne, introduction by James Moore (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2006).

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PART II

On the Human Mind

CHAPTER 1

On the Powers of the Mind, and First on the Understanding

1.

The definition of pneumatology

The science of spirits is called pneumatics by modern writers; among the ancients it was a part of metaphysics or of physics.1 But as we have no certain knowledge of any spirits other than human minds and the good God almighty, when we rely on the resources of our own reason alone, they will necessarily be the principal subjects of our discussion. And since we must progress from things that we know in order to bring more obscure things to light, without regard to the dignity of the things themselves, pneumatics rightly begins from knowledge of the human mind.

Spirit is substance which thinks or can think

Spirit, soul, mind denote the same nature, whatever it may be, which thinks or can think, and which is conscious of its own actions.2 It is likely that there is a very large number of such natures, various orders of them, in fact, equipped with various powers: most of them much inferior to human minds with which they have very little in common, but many also perhaps which are superior. Though all of them are called by the same name of spirit or soul, they are almost a whole world, as they say, different from each other. We must first give some account of the powers of minds before determining anything about their nature. It is quite obvious that the human soul is distinct from the gross body which is accessible to the external senses, since no one has said that thought, prudence, arts, or virtues are located in flesh or bones, or in the veins or gross humors.

2.

The twofold power of minds: understanding and willing

Since no one has yet shown whether there is any power in the mind which causes the body to grow and flourish and be nurtured by the food it takes in, we shall ignore the auxetic and threptic force of the soul which the ancients so often mentioned.3 The other powers of the mind we might reasonably reduce to two, namely, the faculty of understanding and the faculty of willing, which are concerned respectively with knowing things and with rendering life happy.4

The senses report to the understanding, which is those powers or that ordering of the soul by which, at the prompting of certain things, it immediately receives certain ideas, which are not alterable at its discretion, but which a certain superior nature, the parent and creator of the soul, seems to have formed; and he has so structured the mind that it refers certain sensations to external things, as images which depict their nature or qualities.

Sensations and their causes

Learned men have adopted different opinions about the cause and origin of ideas. None of them can affirm anything beyond this one single point: that ideas arise in the mind from a certain contact with things, according to certain laws which become known by practice and attention; nor can they be referred to any other cause than divine power. We must also credit divine power with the fact that certain external sensations and other ideas are similar to external things.5

3.

Sensations are either direct and antecedent or reflexive and subsequent6

One [kind of] sensation is primary and direct,when a certain appearance (species) is first presented to the mind, and the other is reflexive and subsequent sensation,when a certain new appearance (species) occurs to a mind as it attends to things which it has previously perceived. We must first discuss direct sensation.

External sensation

The sensations which arise in the mind as the result of a certain motion excited in the body or impressed upon it are said to be external and are commonly reduced to five kinds. However, if instead of distinguishing perceptions, we were to make a division of the senses, there would be more than five.

Sensible qualities, secondary or primary

There is an important distinction between sensible qualities: some affect only one sense, others more than one. Of the former kind are colors, sounds, tastes, smells, heat and cold; of the latter, duration, number, extension, figure, motion and rest, which may be perceived by more than one sense, and indeed some of them are perceived by an internal sense. Qualities of the former kind would properly be called sensible, qualities of the latter kind rather states [of mind] (affectiones) that accompany sensation. [We judge that the ideas of these [qualities] and of the relations which hold between them are representations of external things, under the guidance of nature; hence they are classified as intellectual ideas, because in them the powers of reason are exercised with the greatest profit and pleasure.]7

[Sensible qualities] either pleasing or painful or neutral

Some sensible qualities are pleasant, some painful, others neutral or indifferent. In the case of some sensible qualities, mild sensations are pleasing, intense sensations painful. But these sensations depict or represent neither external objects nor actual motions excited in the body itself; however, without the sense of colors or any tactile quality, all bodies would be totally hidden from us, as well as their positions, figures, motions, and sizes. There are also the other sensations properly so called, which are sure signs or indications of things or movements which can help or harm the body; we are warned by a sense of pain to avoid those which do us harm, but are stimulated by a pleasing sense to pursue those which can help. Not without design, I think, not without the power of the gods.8

Ideas accompanying every sensation, duration and number

Certain sensations of concomitant ideas do or may accompany absolutely every perception of the mind; such are the notions of duration and number. For any perception of the mind and any action of which the mind itself is aware carries a portion of duration with it; several of these succeeding each other in a certain series also suggest to the mind some longer space of time. In the same way, it is not only things perceived by external sense which may be numbered, but also those which are perceived by the internal sense or by reflection, as it is called.9

Others are perceptible by sight and by touch

Extension, figure, motion and rest are perceived by two senses, that is, by sight and by touch. Certain writers call these, rather well, the primary properties (affectiones ) of bodies, because under the guidance of nature we believe them to be present just as they are seen in things themselves,10 and physicists tell us that the whole power of bodies to excite sensible ideas depends on one or other of them.11 They speak of sensible qualities, however, as merely secondary properties (affectiones ) or qualities: there is nothing like them in external things, though these things, by a fixed law of nature, have a certain power of exciting these ideas in us, [a power] which they get from their primary qualities.

Whether this perception of primary qualities be called an action or a passive process of the mind, the only cause which seems able to be suggested for the similarity or congruence between ideas of this kind and things themselves is God himself, who by a fixed law of nature ensures that the notions of things which are aroused in the presence of objects are similar to the things themselves, or at least depict their physical appearances, if not their true qualities.

[God himself seems to have made the forms or elements of all ideas, without our own minds contributing anything at this point. But once ideas have been admitted, the mind can ring the changes upon them, and vigorously exercise its powers in doing so. It can either retain ideas or dismiss them, pay attention to them or turn to others; it can divide concrete ideas by abstracting, or join simple ideas and compound them. It can in a certain manner enlarge ideas or diminish them, compare them with each other and learn their relations. In all these [activities] no less than in willed motions and appetites, the mind is conscious to itself of truly doing something.

From the pleasing senses which are called pleasures arises our first acquaintance with good, from painful senses our first acquaintance with evil. And those things which serve to procure the former and avert the latter are called useful, and their opposites are called useless or harmful. When the sublimer senses come into play, they introduce notions of superior goods and graver ills. From these we understand what a happy life is and what is a miserable life, and they must necessarily be attributed to certain natural senses.

Appearances which are perceived by taste,smell, and touch are closely related to specific parts of the body; they indicate what directly helps or harms the body, and have an immediate effect. By sight and hearing we acquire some knowledge of distant things, and sometimes of far superior pleasures; in fact, sight and hearing are very useful in our learning about things and developing understanding. All these senses, then, have been usefully given by nature either to protect our bodies or to preserve the human race or for the purpose of living a good and pleasant life, as will be more evident in the case of the nobler senses soon to be expounded.]12

4.

Internal senses or consciousness (conscientia)

The other power of perception is a certain internal sense, or consciousness, by means of which everything that takes place in the mind is known.13 Each man knows his own sensations, judgments, reflections, volitions, desires, and intentions; they cannot be concealed from the mind in which they are. By this power of the mind each man knows himself and has a perception of himself and can direct his attention to himself and his own actions. Hence there may be full knowledge of spirits and bodies alike; the inner nature of both are unknown, [but] the properties (affectiones) are known.

Ideas of modes of thinking are abstract ideas like many others

It cannot be denied that we have general ideas of these modes of thinking, and that they are abstracted from the properties which distinguish individual ideas. For wherever a similarity is seen between different things, or several things are included in one class, or designated by any common word or symbol, one part of a complex idea comes before the mind, and the rest of it is left out.

5.

Reflexive or subsequent sensations

Now it remains for us to discuss subsequent and reflexive sensation, or those appearances of things or that sense which occurs to the mind when it is directed toward things previously perceived. We call them sensations because these ideas or perceptions arise by a fixed law of nature, not at our discretion. There are many kinds of them, and we will deal with them briefly.14

Novelty, grandeur, similarity, and certain harmonies of sounds are pleasing to them

Some of the things which affect an external sense and would seem to be neutral to it are pleasing, or in some cases unpleasing, to a kind of reflexive sense, when the mind pays attention not only to its external sensations but also to the ideas which accompany them, and is also moved by a kind of impression that is different from the pleasing external sensations. In the first place, novelty is pleasing to the mind because we have a kind of natural impulse to know things, or a desire for knowledge. Likewise the grandeur of anything we see is pleasing. And a certain similarity among several things is also pleasing, when difference and variety are also present. Most pleasing are the combination and harmony of certain sounds, when not only are the higher and lower sounds themselves enjoyed, but also the lengths of the notes and the various other devices so familiar to music lovers.

And all imitation

Virtually all imitation is pleasing, whether in works of art in the classical sense—painting, sculpture, and engraving—or in movement and rhythmical speech.

And knowledge of things

A sense of great happiness accompanies learning and knowledge.

And skilled crafts

It gives great pleasure to look at things which have been cleverly and skillfully made to fill a certain need, even for those who do not expect to get any use from them.

The common sense, and sympathy of affections

We must include among these reflexive senses the sense which is called common. This sense takes joy from the happiness of another man’s good fortune and sorrow from his adversity, so long as there is no animosity, resentment, enmity, or abhorrence of disgraceful behavior. By the wonderful fabric of our nature also, most of the emotions and passions of other men excite similar feelings in us by a kind of sympathetic influence.

The sense of the fitting and the good

Of all these reflexive senses the most notable is the sense of the fitting and the good, which passes judgment as from the bench on all the things men do, on all our pleasures of body or mind, on our opinions, sentiments, actions, prayers, intentions, and feelings, determining in each case what is fine, fitting and good, and what is the measure in each. Almost all the pleasures which we have in common with the animals seem to this sense to be vile and shameful. But resolutions to act that display a nobler character, that intimate powers of mind and reason, that give evidence of a kindly disposition, and especially those which reveal a constant and steady will to do good and to deserve well of others, move all hearts by their very goodness; and for the man who possesses them, when he calls them to mind, they are glorious and full of joy.

This power is innate, gratuitous, and at hand

That this power is innate to the mind and that a man does not approve either his own or others’ actions because of any advantage they have or pleasure they bring him is clear from the fact that each man thinks his own duties toward others are more virtuous the more they are associated with risk of loss to himself, and the less they are intended for his own advantage, honor, or reputation; and from the fact that we praise the good actions of other men which we read of or hear about, even from earlier centuries, as much as we praise present actions that are good, and even approve virtue, loyalty, and patriotism in an enemy, though it does us harm ourselves. In approving these services in which a man has done something for another from friendship, faith, or courage, we cannot expect that either honor, pleasure, advantage, or reward will accrue to us. Even men who scarcely believed in rewards after death still thought it was sweet and fitting at times to die for their country,15 and they believe that even their enemies should praise their death.16

Related to this is that sense of praise and honor when a man sees that his intentions and his actions are approved by the verdict of other men; the opposite of this is that very painful sense of blame if one’s actions and intentions are condemned by others. Men are still moved by both of these feelings even when they do not expect any further benefit from other people’s approval or disadvantage from their censure. Even dying men are anxious about their posthumous fame, no less than those who look forward to a long life.

The sense of humor

By the aid of these senses, then, some of the things that happen to us appear delightful, fitting, glorious, and honorable to us, while others seem vile and contemptible, and we may discern yet another reflexive sense: a sense of things that are ridiculous or apt to cause laughter, that is, when a thing arouses contrary sensations at one and the same time. In the case of men’s intentions and actions, bad behavior that does not cause grievous sorrow or death gives rise to laughter, because there is some dignity in the very name of man because we have a certain opinion of his prudence and intelligence, whereas bad behavior that leads to serious pain or death rather excites pity. In the case of other things, we are moved to laughter by those which exhibit some splendid spectacle at the same time as a contradictory image of something cheap, lowly, and contemptible. This sense is very beneficial, whether in increasing the pleasure of conversation or in correcting men’s morals.

6.

Memory, the power of reasoning, imagination17

From these powers of perception, the mind acquires for itself all the furniture of ideas that the faculty of judging and reasoning makes use of, and it preserves them by means of memory. For there is a power in the mind which can recall a weaker image or notion of any sensation; this is true of every action, judgment, will, and motion of the mind. [This faculty is called the imagination when it has to do with ideas of bodies. There is a similar power involved with all other ideas, which can ring the changes on them. However, there is no imagination or notion whose simpler elements the mind has not previously taken in by some external or internal sense. The mind is able to store and keep such notions, so that oftentimes it can recall them a long time afterward.18

Although both memory and imagination depend to some extent on body in the present state of the soul, nevertheless both powers seem to be within the mind itself, because it often recalls of its own accord ideas it once received, including those which have nothing in common with the body or with external sense. Indeed, images once invoked also run through the fancy of their own accord in some strange fashion, whether because they are connected in some wonderful way with certain previous images, and we must speak of this later, or for some other obscure reason. The Cartesian doctrine of some kind of animal spirits, readily passing through interconnected and open passages of the brain, has altogether too much of the note of fiction.19

We must give a word of warning about the external sense and the imagination, lest being too familiar with them, we judge things that belong to neither of them as untrue or unreliable. To the contrary, those things that are truest and contribute most to a happy or a wretched life are in no way subject to these faculties.]20

Natural associations of ideas

We must not ignore that other capacity of the mind, which is so important in our lives, of storing up associations between ideas which have once impressed it, so that when anything subsequently suggests one idea, it also triggers the others which are associated with it. To this capacity we owe facility in speech and, indeed, almost all our memory of things past.

7.

All good is distinguished from evil by a certain sense; useful things are also perceived by reason

The mind is supplied with a variety of images of good and bad things through the senses and by reasoning. Those which are pleasing in themselves to any of the senses are called good;those which arouse a distressing sense are bad; and they are ultimate in their own kind, and to be sought or avoided for themselves. The reasonings we bring to bear here are not primarily concerned with ultimate goods or evils themselves, but with the means or aids which we make use of in pursuing ultimate goods or rejecting evils. Since the importance of any good to a happy life depends at the same time on the value of the pleasing sensation or the intensity and duration of the pleasure, there will be room for a kind of simple reasoning, or rather recollection, in comparing ultimate ends with each other so that we may make a comparison of the values or degrees of different sensations. We train our capacity to judge the duration of goods through our use and experience of things. We should take the same approach to making discriminations between evils.

Some pleasures accompany passions for passing things; others accompany actions

Some pleasant and painful sensations accompany passions; others accompany actions, though in both cases the sensation itself may be called a passion. [The happier [pleasures] are those which accompany actions.] But although all happiness lies in some sensation, it is still rightly said that the happiness of every nature that is born to act lies in action, since the pleasures that accompany certain human actions are much superior, much more worthy and enduring, than those which can arise from any passion or physical impulse. For some sensations are vastly superior to others. Not all natures that are truly happy are also equally happy. For those which are endowed with few senses or with senses which are capable only of the lighter pleasures will draw the greatest happiness of which they are capable from things that will never satisfy the [longing for] a happy life of a superior nature, equipped by nature with a nobler sense.

8.

Habit, a quality which perfects an innate power

Another wonderful capacity in both mind and body is that if an action is frequently repeated, it will become easy to do it thereafter. This is called habit, and by habit a man’s native powers can be wonderfully developed; and it does not seem that the whole power of habit resides in memory. In oft-repeated sensations, the pleasure or pain gradually diminishes; but if pleasant things ever cease, one misses them dreadfully, simply because one had frequent enjoyment of them before.

9.

Relative ideas: when several things have a property in common

When the mind compares ideas which have been received by internal or external sense, a new idea arises which is called a relative idea; it exhibits the relation or connection between the things compared, so long as they are not completely different. If between the things compared there is nothing common to both, or no similar quality or property in both, there will be no relation or connection between them.21

Judgments, some abstract, others absolute

Judgment, which is called the second operation of the understanding, can hardly be totally distinct from perception. For an absolute judgment may be said to be the complex perception of a thing existing at a certain time, which is prompted either directly by means of the senses or by the intervention of reason, when one discerns the connection of the thing which is the subject of the judgment with the things which sense shows to exist. Abstract judgments are perceptions of relations which exist between things observed; or, if anyone thinks that judgments are distinct actions of the mind, which nevertheless originate in these perceptions, the act of judging is represented by a simple idea which cannot be defined.

How our judgments are in our own power

We will not linger over this other question, as to whether a judgment is a passion of the mind rather than an action.22 The mind seems to be active in the process of cognition, in careful attention, in comparison of ideas with each other, and in its desires and intentions to act. Almost everyone would agree that we do not judge that a thing is this way or that way because we wanted so to judge. The only way, therefore, in which our judgments are in our power or follow the behest of our will, is that it is within our power to direct our attention to either side [of an argument] and to carefully examine both. And since a sane man soberly directs his mind by particular arguments and understands them, he cannot withhold his assent; or, if the arguments which he understands are only probable, he will perceive, even against his own will, that the side to which they point is probably or likely to be true. There is therefore a greater freedom involved in apprehensions, which we can vary at will, than in judgments. But since against most arguments which are only probable, the presumption or suspicion remains that there may be other more likely arguments on the other side, it is within our power to withhold the full assent of our minds to this conclusion, even though it seems more likely, and to abstain from acting, until we have also examined the arguments which point in the other direction. There are countless degrees of likeliness, and some approach very close to full certainty and seem to offer full and perfect credit.

CHAPTER 2

On the Will

I.

What the will is

As soon as an image of good or evil is presented to the mind, another faculty of the soul comes into action, which is distinct from every sense and is called the will; it seeks (appetens) every kind of pleasant sensation and all actions, events, or external things which seem likely to arouse them, and shuns and rejects everything contrary to them. [Innate in every man is a constant desire (appetitio ) for happiness, which never fails to display itself, when opportunity offers, in pursuing (appetendo ) things that seem to make for a happy life and in spurning things that do not. There is, however, no innate notion of the supreme good, or of an aggregation of all goods, to which we may refer all our intentions. What it would be correct to say is that the mind, so long as it maintains a calm and provident motion, is formed to seek every good thing in itself and to shun every evil; and when several things come before it which it cannot have all at the same time, it turns to those which seem greater and more excellent. The same should also be said of warding off evils. Hence we must often reject pleasures which it is not possible to enjoy without the loss of greater and more lasting [pleasures], or which are followed by more serious pains. And likewise pains must sometimes be borne, if that is the only way we can obtain greater pleasures or avoid more serious pains.]1

The two meanings of desiring

Just as we include among the operations of the understanding not only sensations which are perceived by the body and are common to us with the brute animals, but also the nobler powers of perception which are proper to man and which convey the notion of superior goods, so also man’s desire (appetitus) is twofold. One desire we share with the dumb animals. It is called sensual [desire] and directs us toward pleasure by a kind of blind instinct; it is driven by a quite violent emotion of the mind to obtain certain sensual goods and avoid sensual ills. The other is a calm emotion which calls in the counsel of reason and pursues things that are judged, in the light of all the circumstances, to be superior, and are seized by a nobler sense. It is called rational [desire], or will in the proper sense.2 We will first give an account of this desire; it is common to us with every creature endowed with reason.

2.

Rational desire

Such a desire or aversion arises spontaneously when an image of good or evil is presented and considered in all its circumstances, without a prior decision or command of the will. A desire or aversion is very often followed closely by a kind of deliberation about all the arguments and considerations in favor of getting the thing we want or of avoiding the thing we dislike. After these arguments and considerations have been explored, there follows an intention ( propositum ) or determination (consilium) to do those things that seem most likely to achieve the end. The first desire or aversion the scholastics call simple wanting; the intention to act, after the agent, so far as his intelligence and diligence allows, has weighed everything that precedes, accompanies, or seems likely to follow the action, they call efficacious volition.3

How mixed things are desired

Just as we seek by nature every good which is worthy in itself and shun every evil, so when good things are mingled with ills, the will inclines to those which seem more numerous and more excellent. Thus there is a certain deliberation about ends themselves, or about things which seem good or evil in themselves and which are called objective ends, though there is no deliberation about the ultimate end, the formal end as they call it, or about happiness itself and the rejection of misery.4

[And though ordinary goods generally do not have enough force to necessarily cause an efficacious volition, since it is quite often possible to foresee more serious ills attached to them, nevertheless whenever an absolute or infinite good is clearly seen which carries no preponderating evil with it, it will necessarily give rise to desire and arouse an efficacious volition. Only wise and prudent men, therefore, have one ultimate end set before them to which they refer all their intentions to act. Other men live in a more ad hoc fashion, pursuing various things which are recommended by some appearance of good and fleeing the contrary, unless they see something attached to it which has the power to turn their minds in a different direction. But all deliberation, whether about the ultimate end or about means, is to be referred in the last analysis to a certain immediate sense of pleasure or distress. ]5

3.

Where liberty lies

Since the sentiment of the mind after completing its deliberation does not depend on the will, but necessarily follows the evidence of truth which is put before it, and [since] no previous command of the will arouses simple wishing or the initial desire or aversion, there is no question of liberty here at all, whether liberty is taken as the power of doing what we wish and omitting what we do not wish, or a certain indifferent power of the mind to turn equally in any direction.6 If therefore liberty is a faculty which, given all the conditions for action, may act or not act, do one thing or its contrary, it will only have place in an actual intention to act or in an efficacious volition, according to whether we can initiate [the volition] or suppress it by a previous decision of the will. But if this power pays no attention to the appearances of good or evil which are put before it or fails to follow them, it would seem to be a useless and capricious [power]. Anyone, therefore, who finds it absurd that our minds should be endowed with a power which in no way certainly follows our judgment will have to define it to mean merely a power of doing what we wish and of refraining when we do not wish, however much the mind may have been constrained to wish or not.7

[It seems to have been the position of the Stoics that the will is constrained and directed by each man’s character, whether natural or artificial, together with the appearance of good or evil that is put before it, and that it cannot happen otherwise. For they believe that there are certain natural laws set in the mind itself, or that the nature of minds is such that they are necessarily directed by what we have called causes. A great many things, they hold, have this power of constraining the mind and arousing certain feelings by themselves without any [process of] reasoning. For it is not only things which are useful or pleasant to someone which stir his desires, but closeness of blood, benefits received, evidence of virtues in others, and so on excite love and goodwill of themselves; and injuries arouse anger and a desire for vengeance. And under equally unchanging conditions each man’s natural character is variously modified by its various encounters with things, as a result of custom, habits, and the complexion of the body itself. But given the character, the appearances presented to the mind necessarily direct it, so that all these circumstances being as they are, it cannot will otherwise; but it could act otherwise if it willed otherwise.

They hold that this condition of our nature is completely compatible with actions being good or bad, since in their view the goodness and badness of actions lie chiefly in our state of mind (affectionibus ); some states, in accordance with the structure of our souls, are good and laudable in themselves, while others are disgusting and detestable however they may have been aroused in us. They also argue that this does not in any way detract from the force of laws, threats, and exhortations, since the power of these lies precisely in the fact that they offer a new image of good and evil. And though this reasoning shows that all anger is useless and unworthy of the ruler of all things as well as of the wise man, it will not make the threat or infliction of punishment useless or unjust provided that serious evils often cannot be averted without them, and men or other natures endowed with reason who are not very constant in virtue cannot be kept from their vices by any other equally ready means.

The Peripatetics and other learned and pious men, who find these views too harsh and not quite consistent with divine justice, take a different approach. They take the position that although minds always follow some appearance of good, still in situations where they are between two appearances of good, on the one hand the right and the good, on the other hand the pleasant and the useful, they turn themselves of their own accord in the one direction or the other. We linger no longer over this highly vexed question, which has always troubled the minds of the learned and pious.]8

What control a man has over his desires

Whatever men’s freedom may be, if adequate signs of superior goods are put before them, anyone who has carefully examined the things which arouse desire, and has directed the powers of his mind to this thing, [will find that] all his appetites and desires will be stronger or milder in proportion to the goods themselves. Everyone, therefore, who has seriously done this will be able to make all his desires for superior goods and aversion from the graver evils so strong that he will easily be able at need to suppress weaker desires for bad things and his aversion to lesser evils. Thus he will be able to shape the whole pattern of his life, so that he will pursue all the nobler goods and ignore all the lower things which are incompatible with them.

Joys and sorrows

Apart from desire and aversion, which are different from every sensation and incite to action directly and by themselves, joy and sorrow are commonly attributed to the will; but they are rather reflex and secondary sensations, which are different from the sensations which things at hand excite directly, and may either precede or follow them.9 For joy arises from the expected acquisition of a thing sought, or the expected avoidance of an evil presently threatening, and sorrow from the fear of a future evil or the expected loss of a good.

4.

Sensual desire and the passions

Very different from calm desire or aversion, which are concerned with our own or another’s good or evil, and which follow the images of good that our understanding foresees, are the violent motions of the mind, which are called passions of the will and to be included in sensual desire. [They occur] when we are driven by a kind of blind but natural impulse to do certain things or to desire them, even when reason has not pointed to any appearances of good or evil, nor shown us that they are necessary or useful to our happiness or the happiness of those whom we hold dear. These motions are accompanied by a kind of confused and powerful disturbance of the mind which impedes the use of reason. They often agitate the mind when it is not moved by any pure affection or calm plan of action; often pure affections are found without these violent emotions; often they draw the mind in opposite directions at the same time, and desire urges one thing, the mind another.10 Now calm plans of action suppress these passions, now they are overcome by them; this is the state of those who have not yet attained continence or the command of the lower regions of the mind.11

[There are four kinds of violent emotions (motus ), as there are of calm emotions (motus ): desires, fears, joys, and sorrows, and several divisions of each, and some tend to be frequently associated with others and combined with them; it would take a long time to give a full account.]12

They do not all aim at sensual good

Not all of these violent (perturbati ) motions of the body aim only at pleasure or pain. The disturbances (perturbationes) and blind impulses of the mind in people who are reckless and intemperate are just the same, [though directed] toward a great variety of good and bad things. They are included with the sensual desires because they bring with them a very painful or violent sensation, which agitates the blood and often the whole body. Here we include not only the desires for eating or the pleasure of procreation, but also ambition, anger, pity, envy, affection, favor, hatred, and so on.

[The cause of vices

We should hold these violent motions primarily responsible for the various things that move and warp the mind without regard to their worth or usefulness. For just as there is no desire for the unknown,13 so things that we barely perceive and rarely revolve in our minds make a feeble impression; and things that are far away (as to the eye so to the mind) appear small and insignificant unless they are brought closer by frequent and deep thought. Some disturbances also completely fill our minds so that we do not have the strength to follow anything by reason or design. This is how it comes about that earthly things, vile, fleeting, and transitory as they are, so often deflect men from the pursuit of noble, heavenly, and eternal things.]14

5.

The motives of the mind look either to one’s own advantage or to another’s

We should not neglect a remarkable distinction between the motives of our wills, whether calm or violent: in some of them we are ultimately pursuing merely our own pleasure or advantage, or protecting ourselves from evils, whereas in others we seek to bring about or preserve the happiness of others or to shield them from misery. For when we are not moved by envy or anger, or no conflict is seen between another’s happiness and our own, we would desire happiness for every sentient creature, we would pray for every success and happiness for him, and we would strive to spare him all pains and troubles.

Whether violent or calm

This far-reaching benevolence corresponds to the calm feeling of self-love (philautia), which approves and desires the happiness of all men without distinction. For with most of our calm affections we desire the prosperity of our country, our friends, our family, and of all good men, just as we pursue the various goods which reason points to for ourselves.

Different from both of these, we also have violent movements of the will, or passions; certain of them seek some pleasure or advantage for ourselves, and some of them seek it for others. The natural reaction to benefits received is a grateful heart and a stronger motive of benevolence toward our benefactor. The performance of honorable and outstanding services toward any man or the practice of eminent virtue stirs our minds and often inflames us with strong emotion and an ardent zeal to advance men endowed with these virtues to higher dignities. Love of offspring is a very special thing, accompanied [though it is] by distressing sensations: all animals are prompted to procreate by a kind of blind impulse of nature. But anger, that brief madness,15 and indignation are a natural reaction to injuries whether committed against ourselves or against others who do not deserve it.

There is a kind of truly gratuitous goodness

Everyone who enters into his own mind and explores his own intentions and feelings in his actions will find that these kindly feelings of our hearts, whether calm or violent, are not aroused by a previous command of the will and do not ultimately look to any advantage or pleasure of our own. [This is] particularly [clear if] one surveys the counsels and deeds of famous men, sacred duties performed by dying men, voluntary deaths to save friends and country. We may also observe the ends of lesser men, how they commend their children and friends, remember and cherish old friendships, and maintain the highest standards of duty with their last breath! These show that probity and gratuitous goodness are innate in men, not prompted by pleasure or evoked by the prospect of reward.

[Natural instincts

There are also certain natural propensities of the mind, or instincts, to perform, pursue, or avoid certain things, without any preceding reasoning, and with no thought of their importance for our own or others’ advantage. In the brute animals these things are more obvious; something very like the minds of men is implanted in them by the kindly design of God, for their individual or common advantage, so that they may show what things are suitable to nature and what things are to be sought for themselves, and so that each may use his own nature as a guide for living. I need not mention again our approval and praise of good men, our frequent commemoration of benefits received, our compassion for the afflicted, painful as it is, and the fact that we are ready to visit scenes of misery, even when we have no opportunity to do any good. What advantage for ourselves or others do we seek by lamentations for the dead or the funeral honors we give them, by the wishes of a dying man for a child who will be born after he is dead, by the avoidance of childlessness, or by our extreme aversion to physical deformity or abnormality even when there is no loss of function? Why do children have an itch to see and hear things which are no use to them, and why can they never sit still? What is the point of endlessly deploring disasters to which no relief can be given? And why do those who hold that human affairs are no concern of the dead give themselves so much pain and trouble to achieve an enduring reputation for themselves and their family?]16

6.

Painful sensations (sensus) either precede or follow motions of the will

A painful sensation naturally precedes certain passions of the mind and accompanies or follows others. It precedes the passions which the scholastics quite properly ascribe to the sensual appetite, those which concern the nutrition of the body and the preservation of the species. Other passions or appetites are accompanied or followed by certain painful sensations, when the means to satisfy them are wanting. There are many such sensations, not very different from one other.

The mind’s control of its violent emotions

Since all the lower desires get their special force from incautious associations of ideas,17 from which without any natural cause to do so, we imagine that certain things have wonderful virtues or make some great contribution to a happy life, because these things are given a very high value by irresponsible people whom we associate with, or ambitious, self-indulgent, or immoral people (who by bad habits and long use have depraved or virtually destroyed their natural sense of things). If we are to achieve a just command of these desires and true freedom of mind, it would be very helpful to separate and take apart these notions which we have so carelessly put together, and take a long, hard look at those things that stimulate the appetite, stripping them of these stolen colors; so that we may discover and learn for ourselves what real good and evil is in each of them, and so that we may not seek or shun them beyond the measure of true good and evil.

7.

The passions not useless

Since men have not had sufficient force of reason or intelligence to get a clear idea of the fabric of their own bodies, and to understand what things are helpful and what do harm, or what it would be suitable for them to eat, we have had to be warned of need or hunger by a painful sensation; and useful things have had to be distinguished from harmful things by sensation rather than reason; and often we have had to be driven by a blind impulse of nature toward the things that are healthy for us or for the human race. By these things alone we have been driven, by strong stimuli of this nature, so that we would not remain mired in the ways of beasts; similar stimuli of distressing sensations are attached to many other appetites for things which reason would judge to be useful, so that the mind would be better strengthened against the enticements of the lower pleasures.

CHAPTER 3

Whether Spirit Is a Different Thing from Body[cp11.2][cb-3]1

1.

It is a celebrated question whether thinking thing (res cogitans) is completely different from body, or whether on the contrary matter itself, that is, extended thing (res extensa ), [which is] solid, mobile, and made up of different parts, can understand and will and possess within itself all that we commonly call the properties of spirits.2

Whether substance is completely different from body

A number of respectable ancient philosophers adopted the latter view, believing that certain subtle bodies, whether air, fire, or aether, are the actual thing that thinks, though none of the denser bodies can have the power of reasoning or sense.3

[The subtleties of the Cartesians about the actual nature of the soul, which they choose to locate in active thought, which is also general, I deliberately pass over, because the inward natures of all bodies are hidden from us, and all thought seems plainly to be an action or passion or state of the soul. And the only sense in which we can understand “general thought” is as the general idea of thinking, and we make no assertion about whether or not the soul is always thinking.]4

Our knowledge of things is imperfect

In this difficult question it will be well to remember that the eye of the mind is dull, and cannot penetrate to the inner natures of things, and therefore we are merely inferring likely conjectures about them from properties known by sense or experience. And it is not by arguments or reasoning based on the perceived nature of things that we are brought to adopt some of the most vital doctrines in philosophy, but rather by a certain internal sense, by experience, and by a kind of impulse of nature or instinct. Whoever sets out to settle the question before us, keeping this in mind, will find good reasons to believe that thinking thing is completely different from body.

2.

There is a great difference between the properties of the two things

For first he will see that every kind of thought is quite different from the properties which all agree are in corporeal things, so that it cannot arise from them or from any compound of them. The only apparent result of the motion or collision of several bodies is movement in different directions or damage to the bodies and fragmentation. Nothing can truly arise from the figures of bodies except a figure, either in the things themselves or in some compound formed from them: nothing that has anything in common with sense, understanding, and will.

3.

Certain contrary properties show that things are different from each other

What [of the fact that] every body, if we are to believe men’s reasoning, is a compound of things truly different which, however close they may be to each other, are in different places, and may easily be split apart by a suitably powerful force? And of the fact that the unique property which is in one part of a body cannot also be in another part, though it may have a similar property? The figure or motion of one part is not the figure or motion of another part, despite the fact that this other [part] has properties which are completely the same as those. By contrast, whatever properties the mind has of which it is conscious (and it has innumerable properties, including sensations, ideas, judgments, reasonings, volitions, desires, intentions), it also perceives that all these are properties of one and the same thing, which it calls its self, and it sees that they are unextended and indivisible. And it cannot doubt that it is one and the same thing which at different times feels, perceives, judges, and desires. But this cannot be the case with a corporeal system, each of whose parts has its own shapes, positions, and motions which are truly different from the qualities of the other parts.

4.

Every man’s internal sense will show the same thing

Furthermore, the mind itself, under the guidance of nature, seems to have a consciousness of itself as distinct from every extension, indeed from the very body which it calls its own. For it seems to perceive that this body and its parts, however they may be connected with itself, are nevertheless subject to itself, to be ruled by its command, and are useful or distressing to itself: and perceives itself therefore to be distinct from that body.5

A threefold distinction between perceived properties

In order to better understand this argument, which comes from Plato or Socrates, we must not neglect a threefold distinction of perceptions. Some [perceptions], under the guidance of nature herself, refer to wholly external things, which belong to us only in the sense that they are perceived and whose changes do not affect us. There is a second kind of perception, namely, those which touch us more nearly, pervading us with a sense of pleasure or pain, and which, by a warning of nature, are always attributed to the parts of the corporeal system which we call our body, because they are associated with those places which the parts of the body occupy, and seem to arise directly from a certain motion, property, or change in those parts. These two kinds of ideas are involved in some way with corporeal properties, i.e., motion, extension, and space, and contribute nothing to the true dignity and excellence of man or to his depravity and baseness, and one would not put a lower or higher value on himself or another [person] on the basis of these ideas.

Finally, there is a third kind of perception, foreign to every corporeal property, which represents the very properties of man or of the human mind, and involves no ideas of space, extension, or motion, but depicts the true properties of each self, from which are fashioned all its dignity, goodness, and excellence on the one hand, and all its evil, depravity, and baseness on the other. Such are the notions of understanding, cognition, knowledge, reasoning, love, benevolence, faithfulness, and virtue, and of their contraries; none of them have anything in common with any kind of corporeal property.

5.

Thinking thing is a certain single thing, and is simple: body is an aggregate of several things

Moreover, every body is made up of parts which are really different, and every corporeal property is also divisible, so that a part of a property inheres in individual parts of a body, but the properties which, under the guidance of nature, are thought to be the properties of the mind itself are undivided and simple, and cannot be dissipated through the various parts of the body or diffused through the parts of space occupied by the body.6 We are therefore right to conclude that thinking thing is a simple substance, totally distinct from matter.

6.

Thinking thing is active (actuosa), body inert

The human mind is also aware that it is endowed with a true power of acting. For it not only judges and desires, which are true actions, but also directs its attention wherever it may wish, and turns away from one thing and concentrates on another, entertains or ignores ideas it has received, and magnifies or minimizes them; it analyzes complex ideas or compounds simple ideas, and even sets the body in motion. But all body, if the physicists are correct, is inert, always retaining its own state or motion unless an external force impinges on it.

[Here should come a consideration of those divine powers which we see are in minds; there is memory, and that an almost infinite [memory] of innumerable things; there is invention and excogitation, which investigates hidden things; which has given names to all things; which has captured the almost infinite vocal sounds in a few marks of letters; which has brought together scattered men and summoned them to society of life; which has marked the various courses of the stars; which has discovered benefits, clothing, houses, cities, and the cultivation and protections of life; and has developed from necessary structures to more elegant things, whence so many delights/amusements have come, from poetry, eloquence, and the skills of painting, sculpting, and engraving. Why should I mention philosophy, a divine gift, which has educated us to the worship of God, to the law of men which lies in community and society, to modesty and magnanimity, and every virtue: surely this power is divine and is not of the heart or of the brain, or of the blood, or of the bile, bones, or muscles? can it be in these crude elements of which bodies are composed?]7

7.

There is no generation or corruption of spirit

These same [arguments] will show that spirit is neither generated in the manner of bodies nor perishes. For bodies are generated when there is a due formation, combination, and motion of previously existing parts, and they die when this combination, formation, and motion is removed. From this simplicity of the soul is derived what is called its physical immortality, for the dissolution of the body is by no means necessarily followed by the death of the thing which is quite different from it. But it needs a deeper inquiry to determine whether human minds will survive and live after the death of the body, and we will discuss it later.8

[On the place of spirits

The simplicity of minds offers a reason for doubting whether they occupy space or have any relationship to space. One may make inferences about unknown natures only from their properties. Now, the properties of minds exclude all extension and figure. Indeed, in the present state of things, our minds can act only on external things by way of the body, and their senses are aroused by the movements of bodies; in fact, certain perceptions, in a wonderful and inexplicable way, are related to parts of the body, and others to things or places distant from the body. But the ideas which exhibit the properties of the mind itself are not related to any place. It is not therefore agreed whether a place should be assigned to the mind otherwise than by mere external denomination, drawn from its body. Indeed in this question, as in others raised about the nature of the mind, the gaze of the mind has to be withdrawn from its habitual familiarity with the eyes and the other senses, as well as from hastily adopted opinions, lest we imagine that only those things are true which are perceived by the senses.

The conclusion of all this is that the human mind is “a thinking substance, endowed with reason, totally distinct from body, which desires knowledge and a diverse happiness; and it can find it chiefly in knowledge itself, in the kindly affections of the will, and in action consistent with them; it is normally joined in close union with a living body and is affected by its changes.”]9

CHAPTER 4

On the Union of the Mind with the Body, and on a Separate State1

I.

The command of the mind over the body

The power of the soul to move the limbs of its body is familiar. But whether it is the action (efficacia) of the mind or will that moves the parts of the body directly by itself without the intervention of a superior nature has not been adequately explored. We feel a certain power of the mind, or energy, particularly in the initial moment, whenever we make an effort to move the limbs of the body in any manner. Reports of anatomists cast doubt on whether this action initiates these motions of itself. For it is well known that the movement of an exterior limb depends directly upon a certain movement of the nerves and muscles, of which we are barely conscious and which we never desire or will to exist. Similarly, in the other direction, the arousal of sensations in the mind follows directly upon a certain motion of the nerves which is connected with the brain, though the mind does not perceive this motion; it almost always feels that the motion exists in a certain part of the body at a distance from the brain or even outside the body. There are therefore pious and learned men who attribute all this to a certain divine force.2

[It is also very well known by experience that perceptible motions of the blood and the finer humors accompany all the more intense actions and states of the mind, even those which are connected with barely perceptible things; but there is no sense of them in our tranquil thoughts. However, since thought, like all motions of the mind, is aroused, retained, put aside, and modified by command of the will, it is obvious that none of them is in any way wholly dependent upon the power of inert matter, which cannot change its state or motion.]3

2.

The union of mind with body

Concerning the union of mind and body, we know nothing beyond those powers or constant intimations of powers, by which they seem to affect each other, so that certain bodily movements immediately follow decisions of the mind, and in turn sensations in the mind follow the movements aroused in the body, and they in turn stimulate various appetites and passions which are accompanied by internal and external motions. However, there are several parts of the body which the mind cannot directly move by its own will and whose movements it cannot stop or change, and the continual motions in the body on which life chiefly depends do not give rise to any sensations in the mind; and indeed this would not be at all useful but rather distressing.

[For this reason some believe that the soul does not move the body and the body does not affect the soul by its own powers or by a necessary connection between them, but by the intervention of a superior cause, since the power of the soul reaches only to certain parts of the body, and only certain parts of the body have the power of affecting the soul; and neither has been formed by our design. Nor does the great disparity between these substances seem to be consistent with such a natural and necessary mutual power. Accordingly, they believe that God himself unites souls with bodies at birth, and equally that he causes them to act upon one another in accordance with a fixed law, as he is the same always, and is everywhere present and active.]4

3.

The survival of the soul after death depends on the will of God

Concerning the survival of the soul in separation from the body, all that has been securely established is that we have no awareness or memory of our existence or of any events before our birth, but we do have a probable expectation that the soul will survive the dissolution of the body.5 There is first the fact that we do not see any substance perishing, and cannot show by valid arguments that any substance does perish, and we cannot infer from the death of the body that a thing which is completely different from it will also perish. There is also the fact that the hope and longing for immortality has prevailed among all peoples in all centuries. [The holiness and justice of God require it.] And the government of the universe itself under a just and kindly God seems to require it, so that truly good men whom we often see oppressed by many external ills, and exposed to serious distress simply because they are good, may not fail to receive an appropriate reward for their virtues, and that wicked men, for whom all things turn out well and as they would wish, may not go unpunished. The kindly providence of our most holy governor would not permit either of these things, but for the happiness of his whole commonwealth will keep the majesty of his most excellent laws sacrosanct, safeguarded by fitting penalties.6

This is the only condition on which virtue deserves approval

All things in the physical world have been formed with so much art and skill by the supreme creator of all things, and so many features of the fabric of the human mind also show the benevolence and wisdom of the supreme creator. Yet many aspects of the government of this great commonwealth, which contains the whole human race, remain imperfect and need to be corrected, and if we regard only our present life, this is altogether unworthy of so great, so kind, and so powerful a ruler, and deserves universal condemnation. But all of this may easily be rectified if souls survive bodies, so that the whole fabric and government of the world become fully worthy of the great and good God. Who will doubt then that souls survive, and that the entire government of the whole universe is most perfect? We see considerable evidence of such a pattern even in the present state of things. For often things which in relation to a certain time would be blameworthy if viewed in isolation, because they appear to be sad, cruel, and unjust, and all the responsibility for them seems to rest on God himself, will be found in the end, when they are considered together with their necessary consequences even in this life, to have been planned according to a most intelligent and kindly design.

Immortality is especially desired and expected by the best people

What too of the fact that the nearer a man’s mind approaches the perfection of his own nature, as he looks toward the immense expanse of future time, and recognizes God as the creator and ruler of the world, and despises all things terrestrial and transitory, and at the same time views the common happiness of all men with a kindly intention, and embraces the whole human race with the greatest love and benevolence, how displeasing will the whole government of the world seem to him and all the design and providential plan of the supreme ruler, if all things are really to be destroyed by death? For it is not given to men to enjoy constant and unalloyed good, not even to the best of men for whom this life is often painful and passed amid sorrow and tears (not to speak of the many innocent children who die an early and tragic death), nor is it allowed to hope for other things for oneself or one’s family or the human race beyond these brief and fleeting things soon to be snatched away by death, which human reason itself warns us to despise, bidding us love and long for immortal and eternal things. [And it is not credible that God, who has shown himself supremely intelligent and kind, should have willed to render empty and vain these ardent desires and prayers of the very best men which he himself seems to have implanted and to have specially commended to us.]7

[1 ]On the study of pneumatology in Scottish universities in the early eighteenth century, see the introduction, p. xxii.

[2 ]In the first edition (1742), the text continued after this sentence with a discussion of spirit and the ways in which spirit differs from body. This order of presentation followed de Vries, Determinationes Pneumatologicae, sec. 1, in De Natura Dei et Humanae Mentis. In the second edition of A Synopsis of Metaphysics (1744) this discussion has been moved to chap. 3, pp. 138-44.

[3 ]The auxetic and threptic powers of the soul are Aristotle’s terms for the powers responsible for the “growth” and “nourishment” of all living things. See Aristotle, On the Soul, II, 4, especially 415 a23, p. 85 in the Hett translation.

[4 ]De Vries, Determinationes Pneumatologicae, sec. 2, chap. 6. Locke thought that the distinction of the faculties into understanding and willing had “misled many into a confused notion of so many distinct agents in us.” Essay, II, 21, 6, p. 237. In contrast to Locke, Hutcheson liked to remind his critics of the importance of the distinction between the understanding and the will: An Essay on the Nature and Conduct of the Passions and Affections (1742), pp. 30-31n., and Illustrations upon the Moral Sense (1742), pp. 219-22.

[5 ]Malebranche, The Search After Truth, pp. 46-47, and Locke, “An Examination of Malebranche’s Opinion,” secs. 10-16.

[6 ]De Vries, Determinationes Pneumatologicae, II, 2, does not speak of sensation but of apprehensio, which he defines as nuda perceptio. Hutcheson’s distinction between direct sensation and reflexive sensation follows Locke, Essay, II, 20-24.

[7 ]This sentence was added in 1744.

[8 ]Virgil, Aeneid, bk. 5, 56, in vol. 1, p. 476: Aeneas reflects that it is not without design that he has been driven by a storm to land in the very place where his father died. Hutcheson makes evocative use of the beginning of book 5 of the Aeneid in his inaugural lecture. See p. 191.

[9 ]Locke used the term “internal sense” on occasion (for example, Essay, II, 1, 4, p. 105), as Hutcheson recalled in An Essay on the Nature and Conduct of the Passions and Affections, preface, p. xi. But Locke preferred to use the term “reflection” for those ideas “the mind gets by reflecting on its own operations,” Essay, p. 105.

[10 ]Locke, Essay, II, 8, 9, p. 135.

[11 ]Robert Boyle, Origin of Forms and Qualities, pp. 18-19.

[12 ]The last three paragraphs were added in the second edition, 1744.

[13 ]A Short Introduction to Moral Philosophy, p. 6: “Internal senses are those powers or determinations of the mind by which it perceives or is conscious of itself, … this power some celebrated writers call consciousness or reflection.”

[14 ]For a parallel discussion of reflex or subsequent sensations, see A Short Introduction to Moral Philosophy, p. 12 ff.

[15 ]This is a quotation from Horace, Odes, 3, 2, 13, p. 144, in Odes and Epodes.

[16 ]Hutcheson’s note (1749): “these things are more fully proved in the ethics.”

[17 ]Hutcheson’s note (1749): “memory and imagination.”

[18 ]Hutcheson’s note (1749): “On the origin of all ideas, as on the conclusions of reason, read Locke’s oft-cited book on Human Understanding.”

[19 ]Malebranche described the influence of animal spirits upon the imagination and memory in The Search After Truth, bk. 2, pp. 87 ff. and 106 ff.

[20 ]The three paragraphs between brackets were added in the second edition (1744).

[21 ]Hutcheson’s note (1749): “see Part I, Chapter V, Section 4,” pp. 106-8.

[22 ]See de Vries, Determinationes Pneumatologicae, II, III, 21.

[1 ]The sentences between brackets were added in 1744.

[2 ]The distinction between sensual desire and rational desire was a commonplace in the writing of scholastic moralists: for example, in Eustache, Ethica, I, pp. 10-11, and Heereboord, Collegium Logicum Pneumaticae, I, 8, p. 43. Hutcheson insisted upon it in later editions of An Essay on the Nature and Conduct of the Passions and Affections (1742), sec. 2, p. 32n., and Illustrations upon the Moral Sense (1742), sec. 1, p. 214, against his rationalist critics, who would reduce all actions, desires, and volitions to exercises of the intellect or understanding.

[3 ]See de Vries, Determinationes Pneumatologicae, II, VI, p. 31.

[4 ]The scholastic distinction between objective ends, about which there may be deliberation, and the formal end or happiness itself is found in Eustache, Ethica, 20-27, and Heereboord, Collegium Ethicum, pp. 13-22. See Carmichael, Natural Rights, p. 23, n. 7.

[5 ]This paragraph was added in 1744. In the third edition of Illustrations upon the Moral Sense (1742), p. 318n. Hutcheson wrote: “In many Questions of this Nature we must have recourse with Aristotle to a Sense, which is the last Judge in particular Cases.” (Also see An Essay on the Nature and Conduct of the Passions and Affections, with Illustrations on the Moral Sense, edited by Aaron Garrett, Liberty Fund, p. 189.) He appears to have had in mind (here, as in many other citations of Aristotle) Henry More, Enchiridion Ethicum (1666) translated as An Account of Virtue; or, Dr Henry More’s Abridgement of Morals, Put into English, p. 16: “The Philosopher having (in his great Morals [Magna Moralia, bk. 2, chap. 10]) brought in one who demands, what Right Reason was, and where to be found? The Answer is but darkly thus, That unless a Man have a Sense of things of this Nature, there is nothing to be done. … So that in short the final Judgment upon this matter is all referred to inward Sense, which I confess, I should rather have called, The Boniform Faculty of the Soul.”

[6 ]The notion that the liberty of the will consists in indifference was defended by Eustache, Ethica, pp. 12-13, 64-65, and repudiated by the Reformed: Heereboord, Collegium Ethicum, pp. 4-5, 50. Locke dismissed the idea in Essay, II, 21, 73, pp. 238-84.

[7 ]Hutcheson’s note (1749): “See Part I, Chapter 4, Section 6,” [pp. 97-99], where reference is made to Locke, “On Power.” See also Part III, chap. 3, sec. 3, note 6.

[8 ]It was a characteristic feature of the Neoplatonist philosophers of the third and fourth centuries , some of them celebrated by Hutcheson (“Dissertation on the Origin of Philosophy,” pp. 3-8), that they criticized Stoic fatality by insisting, with the Peripatetics, on the exercise of deliberation over appearances of good in acts of will. One of the most effective critics of Stoicism from this perspective was Nemesius of Emesa, remarked by Hutcheson, in A Short Introduction to Moral Philosophy, p. 4, as an author to be consulted on the subject of human nature, with Aristotle, Cicero, Arrian, Locke, Malebranche, and Shaftesbury. The text of Nemesius, “On the Nature of Man,” is provided in an English translation with commentary in Cyril of Jerusalem and Nemesius of Emesa, edited by William Telfer; see especially pp. 389-423. The Cambridge Platonists also employed Peripatetic arguments against the Stoics on the question of the freedom of the will. See Henry More, An Account of Virtue, bk. 3, chap. 2, pp. 181-90.

[9 ]Locke considered joy and sorrow to be reflective or secondary sensations, which cannot otherwise make themselves “known to us than by making us reflect on what we see in ourselves.” He also referred to these “modifications or tempers of mind” as “in ternal sensations.” Essay, II, XX, 1-8, pp. 229-31.

[10 ]Aliudque cupido, mens aliud suadet: Ovid, Metamorphoses, VII, 19-20, in Meta morphoses, vol. I, p. 342, from the soliloquy of Medea as she attempts to resist falling in love with Jason and betraying her father.

[11 ]Hutcheson’s note (1749): “All this has been more fully expounded by Cicero, in Tusculan Disputations, Book IV.” See also An Essay on the Nature and Conduct of the Passions and Affections, sec. 3, p. 59 ff.

[12 ]This paragraph was added in 1744.

[13 ]Ignoti nulla cupido: Ovid, The Art of Love, 3, 397 (p. 146), from Ovid’s advice to a woman to get out and be seen by men if she wishes to find a lover. The same phrase appears in de Vries, Determinationes Pneumatologicae II, VI, p. 29.

[14 ]This paragraph was added in 1744.

[15 ]Ira autem brevis ille furor: Horace, Epistles, I, 2, 62 (p. 266).

[16 ]This paragraph was added in 1744.

[17 ]See also An Essay on the Nature and Conduct of the Passions and Affections, pp. 95 ff., 136, 165, and so on, on “fantastic” and “foolish” associations of ideas.

[1 ]This chapter was located in Part II, chapter 1 of the first edition (1742). See note 2 to Part II, chapter 1, pp. 111-12.

[2 ]In this chapter and the next, Hutcheson may be supposed to have had in mind the extended debate between Samuel Clarke, on the one hand, and Henry Dodwell and Anthony Collins, on the other, collected in The Works of Samuel Clarke, vol. 3, pp. 719-913, and the later defense of Clarke by Andrew Baxter in An Enquiry into the Nature of the Human Soul. For a review of eighteenth-century debates on the question whether it may be possible for matter to think, see John Yolton, Thinking Matter: Materialism in Eighteenth-Century Britain.

[3 ]See Aristotle, On the Soul, I, 2, 405 a-b (pp. 24-28).

[4 ]This paragraph was added in 1744.

[5 ]In the third edition (1749), a note was added: “See Plato, in Alcibiades I and passim” (Plato, Alcibiades I.129b-130e).

[6 ]Compare the discussion in Hutcheson’s A System of Moral Philosophy, p. 200: “The simplicity and unity of consciousness could not result from modes dispersed and inherent in an aggregate of different bodies in distinct places.” The note to this sentence urges the reader to consult Aristotle, De Anima, I, i, Dr. Samuel Clarke, and “Mr. Baxter’s ingenious book on the subject.”

[7 ]This paragraph was inserted at this place in the third edition (1749). There is also a note to this paragraph: “See Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, I, 24-30.”

[8 ]See Part II, chap. 4, sec. 3, pp. 147-49.

[9 ]These two paragraphs were added in 1744.

[1 ]The corresponding chapters in de Vries, Determinationes Ontologicae, are sec. 2, chaps. 9 and 10, pp. 37-45.

[2 ]Malebranche, The Search After Truth, pp. 46-47, 59-60; and Baxter, Enquiry, pp. 395-407.

[3 ]This paragraph was added in 1744.

[4 ]This paragraph was added in 1744. The authors involved in this paragraph are again Malebranche and Baxter. See Part I, chap. 5, sec. 5, p. 109 and note 15.

[5 ]De Vries considered life after death to be a certainty; inasmuch as the soul is not material, it was therefore created by God from nothing, Determinationes Ontologicae, II, X, 3-4, p. 42. Hutcheson considered that we have only probable reasons to believe in the survival of the soul after death.

[6 ]The argument that divine providence has made such provision for the happiness of the human race was developed at length by Hutcheson in A System of Moral Philosophy.

[7 ]The final sentence was added in 1744.