The English works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, Volume 05 (of 11) — Thomas Hobbes — John Shaqi
The English works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, Volume 05 (of 11)
Thomas Hobbes · en
“Secondly, for the manner how the understanding doth determine the will,
it is not naturally but morally. The will is moved by the understanding,
not as by an efficient having a causal influence into the effect, but
only by proposing and representing the object. And therefore, as it were
ridiculous to say that the object of the sight is the cause of seeing,
so it is to say that the proposing of the object by the understanding to
the will is the cause of willing; and therefore the understanding hath
no place in that concourse of causes, which according to T. H. do
necessitate the will.
“Thirdly, the judgment of the understanding is not always _practice
practicum_, nor of such a nature in itself as to oblige and determine
the will to one. Sometimes, the understanding proposeth two or three
means equally available to the attaining of one and the same end.
Sometimes, it dictateth that this or that particular good is eligible or
fit to be chosen, but not that it is necessarily eligible or that it
must be chosen. It may judge this or that to be a fit means, but not the
only means to attain the desired end. In these cases no man can doubt
but that the will may choose, or not choose, this or that indifferently.
Yea, though the understanding shall judge one of these means to be more
expedient than another, yet forasmuch as in the less expedient there is
found the reason of good, the will in respect of that dominion which it
hath over itself, may accept that which the understanding judgeth to be
less expedient, and refuse that which it judgeth to be more expedient.
“Fourthly, sometimes the will doth not will the end so efficaciously,
but that it may be, and often is deterred from the prosecution of it by
the difficulty of the means; and notwithstanding the judgment of the
understanding, the will may still suspend its own act.