The English works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, Volume 03 (of 11) — Thomas Hobbes — John Shaqi
The English works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, Volume 03 (of 11)
Thomas Hobbes · en
And of names universal, some are of more, and some of less extent; the
larger comprehending the less large; and some again of equal extent,
comprehending each other reciprocally. As for example: the name _body_
is of larger signification than the word _man_, and comprehendeth it;
and the names _man_ and _rational_, are of equal extent, comprehending
mutually one another. But here we must take notice, that by a name is
not always understood, as in grammar, one only word; but sometimes, by
circumlocution, many words together. For all these words, _he that in
his actions observeth the laws of his country_, make but one name,
equivalent to this one word, _just_.
By this imposition of names, some of larger, some of stricter
signification, we turn the reckoning of the consequences of things
imagined in the mind, into a reckoning of the consequences of
appellations. For example: a man that hath no use of speech at all, such
as is born and remains perfectly deaf and dumb, if he set before his
eyes a triangle, and by it two right angles, such as are the corners of
a square figure, he may, by meditation, compare and find, that the three
angles of that triangle, are equal to those two right angles that stand
by it. But if another triangle be shown him, different in shape from the
former, he cannot know, without a new labour, whether the three angles
of that also be equal to the same. But he that hath the use of words,
when he observes, that such equality was consequent, not to the length
of the sides, nor to any other particular thing in his triangle; but
only to this, that the sides were straight, and the angles three; and
that that was all, for which he named it a triangle; will boldly
conclude universally, that such equality of angles is in all triangles
whatsoever; and register his invention in these general terms, _every
triangle hath its three angles equal to two right angles_. And thus the
consequence found in one particular, comes to be registered and
remembered, as a universal rule, and discharges our mental reckoning, of
time and place, and delivers us from all labour of the mind, saving the
first, and makes that which was found true _here_, and _now_, to be true
in _all times_ and _places_.