Hobbes: The Leviathan in modern English – P1C4 – Of Speech

Origin of Speech

The invention of printing is ingenious but of minor worth compared to the invention of letters. It is not known who first invented letters, but people say Cadmus, son of Agenor, King of Phoenicia, first brought letters to Greece. Letters were valuable for recording memories and communicating between men spread across the world. It must have been difficult to design characters, requiring careful observation of the organs of speech, all the variations of sounds produced, and the creation of a set of differentiated symbols that could represent those variations.

But the most important invention of all was that of speech: Names and the connections between them, used by people to define their terms, recall them later, and communicate for mutual advantage and conversation. Without speech, there would be no commonwealth, no society, no contract, no peace, any more than there is among wild animals. Speech was the invention of God himself, who instructed Adam how to name the creatures he showed him. Scripture tells us no more about this matter, but once he had the experience of naming the animals, Adam was able to add more names and join them together so he could make himself understood. Over time he thus developed as much language as was useful, though not as much as an orator or a philosopher would need. For I do not find in Scripture any indication that Adam was taught the name of figures, numbers, measures, colors, sounds, fancies, or relations, much less the names of words and parts of speech, terms such as general, special, affirmative, negative, interrogative, optative, infinitive, all of which are useful, and least of all, the words entity, intentionality, quiddity, and other significant words of school.

But all this language, invented by Adam and his descendants, was lost at the tower of Babel when by the hand of God, all people were stricken as punishment for rebellion and forgot their former language. Dispersed across the world, people must have invented new languages (need being the mother of all inventions), leading to the wide diversity of languages there are now.

The uses of Speech

In general, we use speech to transfer our thoughts into sounds, or our train of thoughts into a train of words. We do this for two reasons. First, we use words to define abstract ideas (thoughts, terms) so we may more easily recall them later. Names thus serve as marks or notes for memory. Secondly, we use words to communicate to each other our thoughts, desires, fears, or other passions. For this use, words are called Signs. There are several special uses of speech. First, we use words to record the causes of things we discover through reason, thus acquiring knowledge and arts. Secondly, we use words to show others the knowledge we have gained—to counsel and teach one another. Thirdly, we communicate to others our desires and purposes so that we may assist one another. Fourthly, we use words to please and delight ourselves and others, through innocent wordplay.

Abuses of speech

For each of these special uses, there are corresponding abuses. First, we may define our terms (“register our thoughts”) incorrectly, putting down meanings that were not intended or confused, and thus deceive ourselves. Secondly, words can be used metaphorically, in a sense other than intended, and thus deceive others. Thirdly, words may misrepresent intent. Fourthly, people can use words to hurt each other. For while nature has given living creatures teeth, horns, hands, etc. to hurt their enemies, people can use speech to injure with words. There is the obvious exception, of course, of correcting and amending those under our charge.

Speech allows us to remember the consequences of causes and effects by imposing names and connecting them.

Names proper and common

Some names are proper and refer to only one thing: Peter, John, “this man”, and “this tree”. And some names are common to many things: Man, Horse, Tree. Though common names are each unique words, they refer to diverse particular things, the grouping of which is called a Universal. But nothing in the world other than Names is universal: the things named are each individual and singular.

Universal

A Universal name is applied to multiple things that are similar to each other in some quality or accident. Whereas a proper name brings to mind only one thing, Universals recall any one of the many.

Some Universal names are of greater extent than others, forming a superset of others, while some Universal names refer to exactly the same things. For example, the name Body applies to more things than just Man, while the names Man and Rational apply to the same things. Note that a name is not always a single word, as in grammar, but may consist of many words together. For example, He that in his actions observeth the lawes of his country is a Name, equivalent to the single word, Just.

By naming things, some names referring more widely than others, we turn reasoning over purely mental things into reasoning over words. For example, someone without speech (such as one born deaf and dumb), observing a triangle and two right angles (such as the corners of a square) may recognize that the three angles of that triangle are equal to the two right angles. But if shown another triangle, they have to perform the same reasoning again. But one who uses words, recognizing that the equality did not depend on the lengths of the sides, or anything else specific to this triangle, other than that the sides are straight and there are three of them, names it a Triangle, and then concludes Universally that this equality applies to all triangles. They can define their invention (the Triangle) in these general terms: Every Triangle hath its three angles equall to two right angles. And thus, the consequence found in one example comes to be defined and remembered as a Universal rule and removes time and place from our thinking and the necessity of repeating our thoughts. It makes what is found true here and now true in all times and places.

The use of words to define our terms is most evident in Numbering. A natural fool who could never learn by heart the order of the words for numbers, such as one, two, and three, may observe the strokes of the clock and nod to them, or say one, one, one, but never know what time it is. Apparently, there was a time when the names of numbers were not used, and people had to count with the fingers of one or both hands. From this, it resulted that we have only ten words for numerals, and in some languages only five, before they repeat. Even one who knows all ten, if they recite them out of order will get confused, and certainly not be able to add, subtract and perform the other operations of arithmetic. Without words, it is impossible to perform calculations over numbers, magnitudes, speeds, forces, or other things, all of which are considered necessary for the good of mankind.

When two names are used together in a statement (“Consequence or Affirmation”), such as A man is a living creature, or if he be a man, he is a living creature, and the latter name signifies the same as the first name, then the statement is true, otherwise, it is false. True and false are attributes of Speech, not of things. Without Speech, there is neither Truth nor Falsehood. If things are not as we expect, then there may be Error, but that is not the same as Untruth.

Necessity of Definitions

Since truth consists of the correct ordering of names in statements, if we want precise truth, we must remember what each name stands for and place it properly in the statement. Otherwise, he will find himself entangled in words, as a bird in lime-twiggs; the more he struggles, the more belimed. Therefore, in Geometry (the one science so far bestowed on mankind by God) we start with the meanings of words, which are called Definitions.

This makes it clear, if one wants true Knowledge, how important it is to examine the Definitions made by prior writers and either correct them, or if they are not already set down, to make them ourselves. For errors in Definition multiply as reasoning proceeds and lead to absurdities which will eventually be noticed, but cannot be avoided without starting over from the beginning. This is the source of most errors. Those who trust in books are like those who add up many small sums into larger ones without considering whether the small sums were correct, and when finally the error becomes obvious, unable to trust their starting point, don’t know how to proceed, but spend time fluttering over their books; as brids that entring by the chimney, and finding themselves inclosed in a chamber, flitter at the false light of a glasse window, for want of wit to consider which way they came in.

Definition of Names is the first use of Speech and necessary to advance Science. Incorrect or missing Definitions is the first abuse of Speech and leads to all false and nonsensical ideas among people who learn from the authority of books without thinking through themselves. Such people are as far below the ignorant as people who truly understand Science are above. Ignorance is between true Science and Error[1]. Common sense and imagination are not subject to absurdity. Nature does not err, but people using language either become more wise or more mad. Without reading, people cannot become either extremely wise or extremely foolish. Wise men use words like game pieces to reason with, but fools use them like money and value them based on the authority of an Aristotle, a Cicero, or a Thomas, or other writer.

Subject to Names

Whatever can be considered in an account, added to another to make a sum, or subtracted, or leave a remainder, is subject to being named. The Romans call accounts of money Rationes, and accounting, Ratiocinatio, and what we call the items of an account, they called Nomina, or Names. Thus, they extended the word Ratio to the faculty of all kinds of reckoning. The Greeks have just one word, Logos, which means both Speech and Reason. This was not because they thought there was no speech without reason but because they believed reasoning required speech. The act of reasoning they called Sylloigisme, which means summing up the consequences of one saying or another. We may give things names for a wide variety of different reasons and therefore there are many different names. All these names fall into four broad categories.

First, we name something because it describes Matter or Body. For example, living, sensible, hot, cold, moved, and quiet.

Second, we may conceive of some property of Matter as being in it, such as being moved, being hot, etc. Starting with this we make names for these properties independent of Matter or Body. Living becomes life, moved becomes motion, hot, heat, and long, length. These are called abstract Names because they exist separate from the names for Matter (though not separate from Matter).

Third, we may make a distinction between things based on the impressions they make on us. When something is Seen by us, we are not thinking about the thing itself but the sight, the color, the idea of it in our mind. When we hear something, we are not reasoning about it but about the hearing or the sound, which is our idea of it via the Ear. Such are the names of impressions.

Fourthly, we gave names to Names themselves, and Speeches. General, Universal, Special, and Equivocal, are names of Names. And Affirmation, Interrogation, Commandment, Narration, Syllogisme, Sermon, Oration, and many others are names of Speeches.

Use of Positive Names

This is the full list of all Positive Names, which signify something in Nature, or may be imagined by man as bodies, are properties of such bodies, or are Words or Speech.

Negative Names and their uses

<The following is taken verbatim from Hobbes as I have been unable to wrap my head around it well enough to put it into modern English. Hobbes seems to be saying that the concepts of the “void” and “infinity” do not refer to things in the real world but are still useful for thinking and language. For example: Hobbes may mean that the statement “No man is a mile tall” is okay, as long as we recognize that “No man” is not the name of a thing.>

There be also other Names, called Negative; which are notes to signifie that a word is not the name of the thing in question; as these words Nothing, no man, infinite, indocible, three want foure, and the like; which are nevertheless of use in reckoning; and call to mind our past cognitions, though they be not names of any thing; because they make us refuse to admit of Names not rightly used.

Insignificant words

All other Names are just meaningless sounds. These fall into two categories. There are new Names that have not yet been clearly defined. Scholastics and puzzled philosophers have coined many of these. The other kind is Names composed of two other Names that are contradictory and inconsistent. For example, incorporeal body or (the same thing) incorporeal substance. There are many of these. When one of these Names makes a statement that is false then the composition is meaningless. For example, if is a false statement to say, “a quadrangle is round”, then the name “round quadrangle” signifies nothing but is merely a set of sounds. Likewise, if the statement “virtue can be powered” or “virtue can be blown up and down” is false then the words “empowered virtue” and “in-blown virtue” are as absurd and meaningless as “round quadrangle”. Because of this, most meaningless terms are constructed from Latin or Greek words. A Frenchman will seldom hear our Savior called “Parole” instead of “Verbe.” Yet these two words only differ in that one is Latin and the other French.

Understanding

When after hearing a speech, the listener thinks those thoughts that the words of the Speech were intended to mean, then they are said to Understand it. Understanding is nothing but thought caused by Speech. Therefore, if Speech is unique to man (as I believe it is) then Understanding is unique to him also. Therefore, it is impossible to understand absurd and false universal statements; though many think they understand them when they do, they just repeat the words softly or in their minds. When I have spoken of the Passions, I will speak of the kinds of speech that demonstrate the appetites, aversions, and passions of man’s mind and their use and abuse.

Inconstant Names

Because not all men are affected by the same thing or at all times, the names of such things that affect us, that is, which please and displease us, are not consistent. Since all names signify our ideas, and our affections are ideas, when we perceive the same things differently we give them different names. For though the nature of what we perceive may be the same, how we receive that nature is different depending on our various constitutions of body, and the prejudices of opinion—giving everything a hint of our personal passions. Therefore, in reasoning, one must carefully heed words that signify different things based on the nature, disposition, and interests of the speaker: words such as Virtues and Vices. For what one calls Wisdom, another calls fear; and one calls justice what another calls cruelty; one prodigality what another calls magnanimity; what one calls gravity, another calls stupidity; etc. Such names can thus never be the proper grounds for thinking. Metaphors and figures of speech are also improper grounds for thinking: but these are less dangerous because they make their inconstant meanings obvious.

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[1] Compare with Bacon: “Truth emerges more readily from error than from confusion”