THE DEVELOPMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY, 



295 



tion of his speculations until another great scientific advance had been 

 accomplished. We cannot state his antecedents better than in his 

 own words : 



"The beginning of astronomy, except observations, I think, is not to be de- 

 rived from farther time than from Nicolaus Copernicus, who, in the age next 

 preceding the present, revived the opinion of Pythagoras, Aristarchus, and Philo- 

 laus. After him, the doctrine of the motion of the earth being now received, 

 and a difficult question thereupon arising concerning the descent of heavy bodies, 

 Galileus in our time, striving with that difficulty, was the first that opened to us 

 the gate of natural philosophy universal, which is the knowledge of the nature 

 of motion. So that neither can the age of natural philosophy be reckoned higher 

 than to him. Lastly, the science of marina hody^ the most profitable part of nat- 

 ural science, was first discovered with admirable sagacity by our countryman. 

 Dr. Harvey, principal physician to King James and King Charles, in his books 

 of the ' Motion of the Blood ' and of the ' Generation of Living Creatures ; ' who 

 is the only man I know that, conquering envy, hath established a new doctrine 

 in his lifetime. Before these, there was nothing certain in nataral philosophy, 

 but every man's experiments to himself, and the natural histories, if they may 

 be called certain, that are no certainer than civil histories. But since these, 

 astronomy and natural philosophy have, for so little time, been extraordinarily 

 advanced by Joannes Keplerus, Petrus Gassendus, and Marinus Mersennus ; and 

 the science of human bodies in special by the wit and industry of physicians, 

 the only true natural philosophers, especially of our most learned men of the 

 College of Physicians in London. Natural Philosophy is therefore but young; 

 but Civil Philosophy yet much younger, as being no older (I say it provoked, 

 and that my detractors may know how little they have wrought upon me) than 

 my own book, ^ De One'' (the Citizen.)"^ 



The application of all this to the psychological philosophy of 

 Hobbes is so patent as hardly to need elucidation in detail. Like his 

 contemporary Descartes, Hobbes was extremely jealous of his inde- 

 pendence, and, what was of less consequence, his originality ; and one 

 may even now hear, not without surprise and otherwise, the unlucky 

 epigram which makes him say that, if he had read as many books as 

 other people, he would have been as ignorant as they. Hobbes had 

 read a great deal more than he deemed it prudent to admit, and if he 

 had read more still the good effect of it would not have been doubtful. 

 But, like the Greeks in the time of Sophocles, he had an advantage 

 which would have made up for any deficiency of literary acquisition. 

 He lived in an atmosphere heavy wdth ideas, and at a time when 

 epistolary communication performed the functions very much which 

 scientific journals now^ fulfill Hobbes does not appear to have corre- 

 sponded with Descartes, but he w^as in constant intercourse, by letter, 

 with Mersenne, who acted as the intermediary between the two philos- 

 ophers. And, as philosophers then concerned themselves with the 

 whole range of the sciences, there was hardly a speculation stirring 

 the European mind that need have escaped the notice of even a think- 



^ "Elements of Philosophy," Epistle Dedicatory, pp. 8, 9. 



