The English Works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, Volume 11

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J. Bohn, 1845 - Philosophy - 11 pages

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Page cliii - When a 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, is conceiving of the consequence of the names of all the parts, to the name of the whole; or from the names of the whole and one part, to the name of the other part. And though in some things, as in numbers, besides adding and subtracting, men name other operations, as multiplying and dividing...
Page ccv - The value, or WORTH of a man, is as of all other things, his price; that is to say, so much as would be given for the use of his power : and therefore is not absolute ; but a thing dependent on the need and judgment of another.
Page cxlii - ... fables in England, concerning ghosts and spirits, and the feats they play in the night. And if a man consider the original of this great ecclesiastical dominion, he will easily perceive that the Papacy is no other than the ghost of the deceased Roman Empire, sitting crowned upon the grave thereof.
Page x - I am not sure, that generally they to whom such honor is given, were more ancient when they wrote, than I am that am writing. But if it be well considered, the praise of ancient authors, proceeds not from the reverence of the dead, but from the competition, and mutual envy of the living.
Page civ - For all men are by nature provided of notable multiplying glasses (that is their passions and self-love) through which every little payment appeareth a great grievance, but are destitute of those prospective glasses (namely moral and civil science) to see afar off the miseries that hang over them and cannot without such payments be avoided.
Page ciii - I put for a general inclination of all mankind a perpetual and restless desire of power after power that ceases only in death.
Page xvi - ... at last finding the error visible, and not mistrusting their first grounds, know not which way to clear themselves, but spend time in fluttering over their books as birds that, entering by the chimney and finding themselves enclosed in a chamber, flutter at the false light of a glass window for want of wit to consider which way they came in.
Page xc - Natural sense and imagination are not subject to absurdity. Nature itself cannot err; and as men abound in copiousness of language, so they become more wise or more mad than ordinary.
Page lxxxii - Besides, if he that attempteth to depose his sovereign be killed or punished by him for such attempt, he is author of his own punishment, as being by the institution author of all his sovereign shall do; and, because it is injustice for a man to do anything for which he may be punished by his own authority, he is also upon that title unjust.
Page xlii - When two or more men know of one and the same fact, they are said to be CONSCIOUS of it one to another, which is as much as to know it together. And because such are fittest witnesses of the facts of one another or of a third, it was and ever will be reputed a very evil act for any man to speak against his conscience...

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