English philosophers and schools of philosophy / by James Seth.

  • James Seth
Date:
1912
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: English philosophers and schools of philosophy / by James Seth. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    73/392 (page 57)
    utility of natural philosophy and geometry is measured by the arts which they make possible and the benefits which come to men through their possession, ‘ the utility of moral and civil philosophy is to be estimated, not so much by the commodities we have by knowing these sciences, as by the calamities we receive from not knowing them.5 The greatest of calamities, or rather the cause of all avoid¬ able calamity, is war, and the cause of war is not perversity of will, but intellectual blindness, ignorance of the rules of civil life, or of £those duties which unite and keep men in peace.’1 Hobbes is, like Bacon, a herald of the new era, he is filled with the new spirit of Naturalism. For him, as for Bacon, the theological and supernatural world of the Scholastic philosophy has lost interest; nature and man, rather than God, are the objects of his inquiry. With regard to the knowledge of God he is as frankly agnostic as his predecessor. £ Curiosity, or love of the knowledge of causes, draws a man from the consideration of the effect, to seek the cause ; and again, the cause of that cause ; till of necessity he must come to this thought at last, that there is some cause, whereof there is no former cause, but is eternal; which is it men call God. So that it is impossible to make any profound inquiry into natural causes, without being inclined thereby to believe there is one God eternal; though they cannot have any idea of him in their minds, answerable to his nature. For as a man that is born blind, hearing men talk of warming themselves by the fire, and being brought to warm him¬ self by the same, may easily conceive, and assure himself, there is somewhat there, which men call fire, and is the cause of the heat he feels ; but cannot imagine what it is like ; nor have an idea of it in his mind, such as they have that see it; so also by the visible things in this world, and their admirable order, a man may conceive there is a cause of them, which men call God ; and yet not have an idea, or image of him in his mind.’ 2