Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers: Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With The Freethinkers."Bradlaugh, Charles
Religion
Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers: Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With The Freethinkers."
Bradlaugh, Charles
Rationalists -- Biography
"His metaphysics are its corollary; all the phenomena which pass in
the consciousness have their source in the organization, of which the
consciousness in itself is simply a result. All the ideas come from the
senses. To think, is to calculate; and intelligence is nothing else than
an arithmetic. As we do not calculate with out signs, we do not think
without words; the truth of the thought is in the relation of the words
among themselves, and metaphysics are reduced to a perfect language.
Hobbes is completely a nominalist. With Hobbes there are no other than
contingent ideas; the finite alone can be conceived; the infinite is
only a negation of the finite; beyond that it is a mere word invented to
honor a being whom faith alone can reach. The idea of good and evil
has no other foundation than agreeable or disagreeable sensations; to
agreeable or disagreeable sensation it is impossible to apply any.
other law than escape from the one and search after the other; hence
the morality of Hobbes, which is the foundation of his politics. Man
is capable of enjoying and of suffering; his only law is to suffer as
little, and enjoy as much, as possible. Since such is his only law, he
has all the rights that this law confers upon him; he may do anything
for his preservation and his happiness; he has the right to sacrifice
everything to himself. Behold? then, men upon this earth, where the
objects of desire are not superabundant, all possessing equal rights
to whatever may be agreeable or useful to them, by virtue of the same
capacity for enjoyment and suffering. This is a state of nature, which
is nothing less than a state of war, the anarchy of the passions, a
combat in which every man is arrayed against his neighbor. But this
state being opposed to the happiness of the majority of individuals who
share it, utility, the offspring of egotism itself, demands its
exchange for another, to wit, the social state. The social state is the
institution of a public power, stronger than all individuals, capable
of making peace succeed war, and imposing on all the accomplishment of
whatever it shall have judged to be useful, that is, just."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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