CHAPTER IV

THE NATURE OF LIFE

(_a_) THE VIS MOTRIX

The subject of motion naturally follows the discussions on the cognitive

and appetitive functions. Nature indeed added this power as the

complement of the others, that we might not only know and desire the

good, but also act for its attainment.

The functions which have been discussed hitherto have been motions,

but such as are usually called immanent: our present subject is local

motion, in so far as that is related to will, or, to put it more

comprehensively, in so far as it is traceable to an inner principle. The

line of distinction is not so easy to draw as might at first appear. We

are to speak of all changes of place, and these will include not only

movements of one body, but also movements of the parts of one body.

Among these movements of the parts are many which can only loosely be

called subordinate to the Will: for if we reject ‘motus cordis, cerebri,

intestinorum venarumque,’ and confine ourselves to ‘motus brachii,

capitis, linguae,’ we may still find a difficulty in bringing all their

movements under the head of voluntary movements. In fact what Gassendi

does is to make the Vis motrix from the first an instrument of Will,

and, without trying to make all movements of the parts actions of Will,

merely aims at showing how these motions, which we ascribe to Will, are

made possible in the economy of nature.

The power of motion is fundamentally one with life: it is ‘ex ipsa

natura contexturaque animae,’ for the soul is by nature a fire (cp. p.

111), and its very life is motion (insita mobilitate vigens).[89] We

thus annihilate at a stroke many threatening difficulties, strangling

them in the cradle. If the soul is an active principle, activity will

be the principle of the soul: we do not require to bridge the gulf

from psychical to physical activity, since they will be one in their

foundations: it may be that the deeper we go the more real the unity:

that the corpuscles rather than the contextura corpusculorum are the

real home of the mobilitas; but at any rate, in the spiritus ignei of

our organism (the complex referred to as corpore animato) we find a fit

starting point. Gassendi explicitly derives mobilitas from the natura

ignea, and therefore, since fire was chosen principally for its mobility,

commits himself to a circle: moreover, he considers that a body cannot

communicate motion to another unless it be itself mobile, which is

reasonable enough, except for the assumptions which it involves: for

there could be no motion at all on this theory unless we could find a

substance with innate mobility, and that mobility were communicable:

these two points therefore have to be assumed. These questions we must

leave for the present, and accept Gassendi’s position that the body is a

living and moving organism, of which a descriptive analysis (if not an

explanation) may be given.

The ‘vis’ is the inner fire in its form of spirits: its seat is decided

according to the place where the nerves arise, and therefore must be the

brain, not the heart: motion lags behind thought, because the spirits

must be moved through the whole area of the body, and then re-directed

to fresh courses. The organ of the vis motrix is the muscular system:

a muscle includes vein, artery and nerve, the channels respectively of

blood, vital spirits and animal spirits: anatomical experiments prove

that the nerve is the mediator or bearer of vis, and the medulla is a

subordinate centre or fountain of the virtus motrix from the brain. The

nature of the muscular movement has been misunderstood by those who

object that a fixed point is required for contraction: the muscle is not

drawn up to its head, it contracts in the middle. Now, what is it that

the nerve contributes to this action? Gassendi says it is an ‘imperium’:

the essential part of the muscle is the tendon, for that alone has an

innate power of contraction: the shock of the incoming current of spirits

awakens the dormant power and causes action. This point is apparently

considered to be highly important: its significance seems to lie in the

fact that it dispenses with the necessity of any power being conveyed

from the centre to the seat of action: there is no innervation in that

sense of the term: the Mind or Phantasy issues its orders, and nothing

more, which is a metaphorical way of denying _material_ activity to the

mind. How far this ‘imperium’ is immaterial when it equals ‘appulsus

spirituum’ is difficult to see, although technically the spiritus are

immaterial; but it is clear that Gassendi is content to relieve the brain

of the necessity of supplying the force that moves the mass.

All movement is for some end: it applies therefore an antecedent phantasy

giving the good as end. Will then may be said to initiate movement, and

the difficulties which normally surround that proposition are dispersed

if we remember that the Appetitus Rationalis is one with the sensitivus

and Phantasy mediates sense and intellect. None the less, ‘sunt in hac

re tria praesertim admiranda.’ They are (1) the choice of the nerves

required; (2) the speed of the action; (3) the amount of the mechanical

force. The first problem is shirked: it is said that the branching of

nerves is never a division of a nerve, but only a dispersion of several

nerves joined together: hence any one nerve is continuous, and the

spirits will never be perplexed like a traveller changing at a junction:

this however is only an explanation of the persistence of nerve-currents

in one channel: what we hoped to learn was how the current chooses the

right course at first. The second difficulty is settled by saying that a

fiery substance can of course act with the rapidity of light! As to the

third, the answer has already been given when it was pointed out that

the energy stored in the muscle is the immediate cause of the mechanical

motion.

The special treatment of the subject of motion contains very little

of interest to the modern reader: even contemporaries must have found

its elaborate details wearisome. It is divided into three parts dealing

with (_a_) movements of parts; (_b_) vocalisation; (_c_) movements of

the whole or modes of progression. The first and third divisions do

not require any notice: they are mainly concerned with very elementary

anatomy, relieved with the quaint, if unconscious humour, which

occasionally crops up in unpromising places. The chapter on the voice[90]

is too characteristic to be passed over in silence. In the first place

the definition is carefully elaborated: it runs thus: vox proprie est

sonus emissione spiritus in ore animalis aliquo affectu incitati creatus.

The word ‘proprie’ excludes the ‘voice’ of all instruments; ‘emissione’

dismisses the theories of all those who had not recognised that the

act of producing sound is that of expiration not inspiration: aliquo

affectu incitati is added to exclude coughing, sighing, and the like.

Sighing would seem to be one of the ways of expressing ‘affections’; but

Gassendi explains that he means ‘affectus _animi_’: in short, a sound to

be properly vocal must be significant and voluntary, following on some

definite act of imagination. The mental activity precedes the physical:

for this reason the ancients often spoke of the inner voice, but this is

not really a distinction of kinds of voices: the inner voice is nothing

more than thought itself which the outer or physical organ interprets.

There appear to have been some narrow-minded attempts at confining the

possession of a voice to man alone, and among other devices this voice

of the mind was invented that man might be distinguished from the animals

even in this detail: it would naturally follow that the human voice was

generically distinct from that of animals, and capable of surviving the

dissolution of the body. This is one more instructive example of the

way entities can be multiplied to serve irrelevant purposes. Gassendi’s

position is comparatively a strong one: as the voice is the servant of

the imagination it will be just as coherent in its expressions as the

imagination is in its images. Intelligibility is not an absolute quality,

and animals are probably intelligible to one another: their language is

foreign to us, but so is Chinese, and while it may be ‘impious’ to say

they speak in the human sense, each may be said to speak after its own

kind without offence. This correlation of the voice and the faculty of

images, puts Gassendi on a firm basis capable of considerable expansion.

When we come to deal with the specifically human voice we find the

evolutionary aspect tending to obliterate the hard and fast distinctions

more natural to this period of thought. The natural history of speech

must begin with a stage not so far removed from that of the animals:

infants make only vocal sounds: fari non possunt, as the name witnesses;

and it is only after time and experience that they reach the varied

articulations of developed speech. Gassendi notes that pronunciation is

directly related to physical structure: it cannot be learned from books,

and in some degree remains always a birth-right not to be won by labour.

This point was another blow at theorists who vaguely equated the power

of speech with human nature in general and ignored the facts. On the

question ‘sintne nomina natura vel instituto’ Gassendi takes the same

view as Epicurus, and avoids both extremes: the primary name is a sound

significant of pleasure or pain; but people even in the same place would

regard the same thing differently, and hence designate it by different

names: so that intercourse would be impossible if convention did not

supplement nature and carry out a natural selection of sounds until one

object had one name: for succeeding generations this would be a nomen ex

instituto acquired through the medium of society.

Gassendi quotes an example of the contemporary science of language which

shows that he knew where to stop. The doctrine of natural names had

been defended on the ground that the meaning and the motion were often

identical. Tu and ego, for example, necessitate movements of the lips

outward and inward respectively, that is to say toward you and toward

myself! The error which had most to be combated was the use of arbitrary

as the opposite of natural. There could be no question to an intelligent

mind of arbitrary names: though an arbitrium might be exercised in the

selection of words when a language was consolidated, in the early stages

such words as became ex instituto would be so from a natural process

rather than any direct activity of human choice.[91]

(_b_) LIFE AND DEATH

The definition of life is a task essayed by writers in generation after

generation. A broad distinction can at once be made according as the

writer takes life in the sense of a thing or a process. If he regards it

statically as a being or entity he is not likely to advance far: if he

regards it dynamically as a doing or function he will at least be on the

right track. In this respect a philosopher who inclines to use motion as

his common denominator is guided by his general attitude of mind into

paths that may reach the goal. At the same time vita and operatio are

not quite identical: it is truer to say vita per operationem patescit,

although it cannot be understood sine ordine ad operationem.

Gassendi proposes as his definition ‘quaedam quasi usura sive possessio

animae facultatisque operandi ipsius,’ obviously wishing to combine with

the notion of unintermittent function the idea of an agent. It is however

a fallacy to try and erect the means of life into Life itself. To define

life as mansionem caloris (or calidi innati) is to commit such a fallacy.

The calor is really fomentum vitae: it is necessary, but not more so than

the elements: though in fact it prevails and is the principium agens.

Its activity is directed to the absorption of the humours, which are

the pabulum vitae. All life is creation: the individual is no isolated

unit: the stream of becoming flows through him: as worlds, nations, and

generations arise and decay, so the individual moves along, dying daily

and daily regaining new life. Generatio is continuatio vitae and vita is

a continens generatio. Life abides as the flame of a candle, kindling

what it burns: its fuel is the humour, itself the flame, but only he can

distinguish the one from the other who can separate the burning from what

is burnt.

This position carries with it the doctrine that identity is continuity

of action: the original seed contains two forces, the heating and the

heated: calidum primigenium and humidum primigenium as opposed to such

heat as that of the sun or humours such as are obtained in food. From

the first then there is a duality which makes action possible. The

heat-corpuscles by virtue of their nature fly off and take with them

the humid: the consequent exhaustion is checked by alimentation, by

which the humid elements are multiplied and detain the heat-elements.

The action of the heat-elements is then employed in distributing the

new elements throughout the body and renewing its tissues. Life then

is the interaction of these two principles, a conclusion which derives

its importance from the fact that the current doctrines supported a

substantia immutabilis as the secret entity called life. This view was

dictated by the false view of identity. In place of a fixed identity

we can put the identity of equivalence: a part remains to connect the

changes, and the form is not lost in the flux of matter. From this

however Gassendi exempts the pars rationalis. Again, the stages of growth

are not reached per saltum: a proportion is maintained and identity

consists in this proportion. As the brain also grows, thought-identity

cannot be absolute or immutable: empirically at least it is partial:

particles vanish and with them parts of our experience: hence some things

are forgotten and some remembered confusedly. There is an unfortunate

crudeness in speaking, as though an experience could be attached to a

brain particle; but it is redeemed by the last trenchant remark that our

identity abides because we have never been separated from ourselves.

The processes of life as thus described would seem to be unending,

involving continual growth. There are however natural conditions which

prevent this. Growth is checked by the hardening of parts which do not

permit of accretion as they become closed to the influx of new material.

In the midst of life there is death, and it is an error to confine

the word death to the act of expiring: death is properly the whole

course of failure to assimilate, unless it be violent and due to some

extraneous cause. Gassendi discourses at large on all the legends of

long life in man and animals and also on all manner of violent deaths:

death by drowning was thought most awful, for the soul being a flame is

particularly averse to water.

By regarding death as no less natural than life Gassendi touches a

question of great importance in his day. His dictum, what has a natural

birth has also a natural death, was by no means generally accepted, and

his summary of the opposite teaching is an interesting commentary on

contemporary thought. It must be remembered that this discussion does not

affect the question of the immortality of the soul.

The common teaching was based on that antithesis of life and death which

regarded death as a purely negative term: the reality was life, death

an unreality, and some method ought therefore to be discoverable by

which life might be made infinitely continuous. At the bottom of this

doctrine lies the idea of the World Soul, which, as it is perpetually

taken up by us and lost again through the dispersion of particles, might

be retained if the nature of man was purified and made perfect. The

prescribed process was as follows; the Anima Mundi will remain in the

perfect substance: this is gold which can be relaxed so as to absorb

from the rays of the sun the principle of life: being thus enclosed in

one substance, a vital elixir may be formed from this substance, and the

Anima Mundi be conveyed into the body, which gradually becomes purified

and perfected, attaining all the qualities which belong to the spiritual

body mentioned in the Bible, and fulfilling the prophecy that men

should be almost angels, being ‘a little lower than the angels.’ ‘Sane

vero,’ says Gassendi, ‘haec sunt non tam refutanda quam diris omnibus

devovenda.’ Criticism is hardly necessary even to the extent of pointing

out that if gold admits the external principle so easily it might no

less easily part with it. The whole scheme is the work of ill-trained

imaginations urged on by the desires which are common to all races and

all times. The idea of reducing all things to one form was based on

the opinion that, if all things are forms of matter, the matter must be

some nature to which all other natures were reducible, and through which

they could be transformed into any other given nature. This fundamental

common nature x being a universal, its discovery would simplify all the

sciences, and especially that of medicine, making possible a medicina

catholica, for the unity of the universal nature would admit of a

medicine one and universal, apparently because it would make a plurality

of diseases impossible. The tyranny of the universal in the sciences has

been noted often enough: its power was at its highest when the minds

of men were dazzled by new discoveries, and vague generalisations were

suddenly quickened into a new indefinite possibility of life by rumours

of great discoveries and vague echoes of unearthly knowledge from the dim

and superstitious cell of the alchemist.

These two pages give an excellent account of the essence of Alchemy

as a magic science. Gassendi also gives us a hint of the way in which

Transubstantiation and Transmutation became confused: ‘gloriosum Christi

sanguinem ... edixerunt nihil aliud esse quam Catholicam suam Medicinam!’

(II. 615).

(_c_) THE CONSTITUTION OF ANIMALS

I.

The word temperament or temperies which is used by Gassendi to denote

the constitution of living bodies was ambiguous in his own time, and has

now diverged still further from its original meaning. The complexity of

meaning is however a true indication of the evolution of the ideas the

word denotes. The Latin ‘temperamentum’ originally meant no more or less

than the Κρᾶσις of the Greeks, and is convertible with ‘commistio’: it

looks therefore entirely to the physical composition of the body, and

is a name for the various ratios which may hold between the elements in

any ‘totum compositum.’ None the less the purely physical aspect never

excluded the idea of character, which again, though applicable to all

things, tended to become restricted to psychical character. In this way a

natural course of development carries us over from elements and atoms to

characters and dispositions.

The doctrine of Temperaments is a characteristic element of mediaeval

thought: its vagueness gives it a tinge of mysticism: it seems to unite

the two worlds of mind and matter in one comprehensive grasp, and

links the characters of our acquaintances with the day of creation and

the emergence of atoms from chaos. Looked at from one point of view,

mediaeval thought will be seen to have no lack of breadth: dogma was

indeed a constricting power, but it did not suppress the longing for

universal terms in which to state or solve problems, nor impose its

precision on minds that found much satisfaction in undefined thoughts and

over-defined diction.

Though the subject of temperament may now be said to have vanished from

what we usually call philosophical works, much of what the mediaeval

thinker collected under that title can be found in modern form in

works that deal with the concrete individual, with the natures and

dispositions of children, hygiene, adolescence, and the like, and we find

in books on these topics a growing tendency to vindicate the relation

of physical to psychical characteristics in that concrete way which the

theories called ‘psycho-physical’ rarely or never attempt.

If we now turn to Gassendi’s pages we find that he begins with a summary

of qualities, enumerating three different classes, and then states quite

generally that all qualities owe their origin to the ‘temperies,’ and as

the temperament is so will the qualities be. The chief reason however for

discussing the question of temperament is that we may be able to advance

to the questions of health and disease, which are only natural and

unnatural conditions of temperament. In a sense the temperament is life,

for it is that equilibrium which must be maintained, and which admits

only a limited degree of disturbance.

The history of the theory of Temperament divides naturally into two

periods. In the earlier the question is mainly of elements, and always

of some form or other of matter: in the latter chemical principles take

the place of primaeval elements. If any one finds this a distinction

without a difference, and complains that chemical principles are a form

of matter, he must recollect that such was not the attitude of the

fourteenth century, when men were most at home with ‘dead matter,’ and

felt a difficulty in classifying many of the chemist’s discoveries.

Those doctrines which take as their basis either atoms or elements,

go back to the earliest days of Greek thought. They have however many

difficulties. The nature of the combination is a fundamental problem:

the result has to be a mean of some kind; but if we deal with either

atoms or elements as irreducible ultimates, they must either (like

grains of corn) be simply co-existent, or they must interpenetrate.

Co-existence clearly is not what is wanted, and interpenetration implies

that two bodies occupy the same space. On the other hand, qualitative

difference is not obtainable if the elements are all homogeneous: water

added to water only gives a difference of more or less: our combinations

must be different in kind, analogous rather to the mixture of wine and

water. This is in fact our type, and we must explain the mixture as

we have done in discussing qualities, by introducing the concept of

intension. We have here really two questions. One is of the temperamentum

ex primis principiis: the other of temperamentum ex contrariis. The

former goes deeper than the latter, and is an ulterior question, the

decision of which hardly affects the second. Gassendi proceeds to deal

with the latter. As a theory it is really independent of the particular

given matter: it rests upon a category which may be taken formally.

Any combination _x_ + _y_ satisfies the conditions if _x_ and _y_ are

contrary. Hence there is no a priori reason for taking only those four,

earth, air, fire, and water, to which the discussion is usually confined.

That choice is dictated by irrelevant considerations of the physical

constitution of the universe: so far as our category goes, we might

employ such opposites as light, heavy, smooth, rough, and the like.

Avicenna indeed seems to have been confused, and perhaps others with him:

they took the four elements as typical of four qualities, and so were

led astray, speaking as though the qualities might change and mingle,

whereas the true view is that of Galen, who refused to divorce quality

from substance, and remained on firmer ground in trying to explain the

Temperament (Κρᾶσις) as an interrelation of substances (Galenus probandus

dum elementarum substantias misceri totas per totas dicit).[92] These

points we leave and simply admit four substances, a hot, a cold, a wet,

and a dry, which, wherever they have obtained their qualities, are

mingled and tempered. Their mingling results in some corpus (lapis,

planta, animal), and we may define a temperament as ‘congrua calidi et

frigidi, humidi et sicci mistura.’ This dogmatic solution of the question

seems dictated by the medical views of the time on humours and diseases,

which Gassendi was probably not in a position to criticise. According

to Galen, temperaments may be distinguished into nine kinds, one the

canon or norm, the rest abnormal, due either to excess of one quality

(which gives four kinds) or of two (giving four more). A temperament

may be too hot or too dry (siccum et calidum), but cannot be too hot

and too cold (calidum et frigidum): these eight are therefore the only

combinations possible. The mean temperature is itself twofold according

to Avicenna, namely universal and specific. The universal is ad pondus,

_i.e._ a typical form assumed as the nature of universal substance and

determined quantitatively, the mixture comprising mathematically equal

quantities of the four opposites. This however is condemned by Galen as

purely theoretical, and if it existed it would be a pure equilibrium

which could exhibit no action and no metabolism (neque si qualitates sic

temperatae existerent actio exseri ab illis ulla posset). The second or

specific kind is ad justitiam, a proportion which realises a mean, and

which, while being the same in the sense of always being a mean, is not

absolute quantity. This kind varies with the nature of the being and

the different ages of the same being, but in such a way as to maintain

its chief characteristics. There will be degrees of better and worse

in the types thus realised, and therefore we may derive from this a

true type without assuming the typical absolute type ad pondus. Every

animal is heterogeneous, and therefore its temperament is complex. Some

of its parts are fluent, some fixed: the fluent are called humours and

their excess gives the four types sanguine, phlegmatic, choleric, and

melancholic: the fixed comprise the ‘partes spermaticas semineasve et

sanguineas’: the spermatic or ex semine formatae are bone, cartilage,

ligament, tendon, nerve, artery, and membrane: those ex sanguine

procreatae are the softer parts, heart, kidneys, liver, and lungs. The

whole has a harmony of its own, and the whole animal is a well-ordered

republic.

II.

The progress of knowledge tended to relegate to the limbo of myths all

the ancients had said about elements. The Chemists substituted for

principles and primary elements their own chemical elements. Into the

details of this doctrine we need not penetrate: in the place of the four

elements five substances were recognised as the elements to which all

things could be reduced, and from which they must therefore have arisen.

Gassendi is not concerned with the value of this position as a scientific

doctrine, but with its philosophic import. He obviously regards it as

pretentious, and his criticism is an interesting composition of views on

the nature of things. There are four direct charges against the doctrine;

the authors of it cannot agree among themselves as to the number of

ultimate principles: special properties of natural objects, such as

the healing power of dictamum or the deadly cold of hemlock, remain

unexplained: no explanation is given of the form of organic and inorganic

products; and all the higher qualities such as sagacity are completely

overlooked.

Though these are details, they involve a principle of the highest

importance. The merely scientific mind takes its stand on analysis: the

chemist says ‘analysis gives such and such elements, and therefore,

unintelligible as it may be, these must be the source of all that we

see.’ But when is an analysis exhaustive? If the chemists laugh at the

ancient physiologists, what will future ages say to the chemists? The

assumption of finality is mocked by progress; and the progress we boast

is part of a movement to which we must succumb—a sentiment that recalls

the saying, ‘the evolution of thought is part of the whole evolution.’

When is an analysis exhaustive? Probably never, but at any rate only when

it admits of an adequate corresponding synthesis. Gassendi shows that he

clearly comprehended this great principle. The chemist, he says, would

laugh at a surgeon who declared that the living being was no more than

a sum of the parts which he could dissect and display. If we try to make

our analytic of constitution a complete explanation of life, failure must

necessarily ensue.[93] The reason is clear: we strive to exhaust in terms

of sense what is not given to the senses: we cannot reach the ultimate

because the torch that lights the intellect fails us on the road.[94]

For this reason it is useless to substitute for principia any imaginary

sensuous agents such as mechanical spirits: the complexity of life in

all its forms, with all its endless adaptations, cannot be explained by

mechanical agents unless we abuse the term and ascribe to such agents

properties which are foreign to mechanism. The construction of a palace

appears to us marvellous with its endless processes: the wood has to be

brought from the forest, the stone from the quarry, and all the parts

have to be shaped and fitted together; but in this case we see the

agents, architect, masons, and woodcutters, and if we still find cause of

wonder in this, how much more should we marvel at the construction of a

living body where all the agents are unseen and the structure has to be

maintained by incessant repair![95] We must not think that we can exhaust

nature: there is something that does not fall in the range of human

powers, and while we cannot completely explain Nature we must so far bow

before it as to acknowledge that the whole is more than the parts, the

synthesis greater than our analysis.

This criticism is strengthened by the restraint it shows: it ends in no

dogmatic introduction of a creator which science might require to have

demonstrated: it is intended only to define the limits of science.[96]

The question arises, are those limits necessary or contingent? No

distinct answer is here given, but Gassendi seems to consider that in

time (perhaps infinite time) the unknown might become revealed, not to

sense alone but to an intellect guided by sense. After this philosophic

digression, the treatise returns to the question of diseases and their

cure, medicine being the science to which the doctrine of temperaments is

properly ancillary. For our present purpose this part of the subject is

superfluous.

PART III. ETHICS

CHAPTER I

ON HAPPINESS

I.

The student who enters on the task of discovering Gassendi’s views on

ethics has before him a problem of considerable magnitude. The mass of

quotations is enormous: repetition is frequent: and the main line of

thought is obscured by the twofold purpose of defending and at the same

time modifying the views of Epicurus. The whole literature of the subject

is ransacked: the Greek philosophers are quoted in almost unreadable

type: passages from the Fathers and other authors innumerable occupy

whole pages: while the doctrine actually supported is obscured by endless

polemics against authors now for the most part deservedly forgotten.

To represent the learning of the original is almost impossible, while

omission of the quotations must necessarily deprive the reader of a true

idea of Gassendi’s method of treating the subject. The doctrine must

however be stripped of this robe of erudition, and perhaps a method that

leaves the truth naked will not be without its advantages.

Gassendi’s preface states his position. Moral philosophy is not

speculative or concerned only with theory: it is also a scientia activa,

a treatise de eligendis et fugiendis, a practical study. It is a theory

of Prudence rather than wisdom. As Gassendi notes, the word ‘morals’ does

not quite equal the Greek ‘ethics.’ The latter indicates more clearly the

element of individual habituation; and virtue, though innate, requires

education of the soul. Man is solitarius, familiaris, and civilis.

Morality is properly concerned with man as solitarius in the sense that

the self is the foundation of all, and thus this science is distinguished

from all others, such as Politics, which deal with man in his relations

to the society or the State.

We naturally expect from this a certain psychological and individual

trend in the rest of the treatment. The first book is on Felicity, the

second on the virtues, and the third on the kindred subjects of Liberty,

Fortune, Fate, and Divination.

II.

The discussion of Felicitas opens in a characteristic way with

twenty-seven pages of quotation. Felicity is the end of life, but in what

sense? It is really a confusion of terms to make Felicity the summum

bonum, for felicity is the possession of the highest good, which must

therefore be determined separately. The best of the many definitions of

the summum bonum is ‘tranquillitas animi,’ but we must conceive that

as an active state, a living, not a dead repose. It is a permanent

condition which must be reached by the mind through its self-discipline.

No external means or sensual indulgences can produce the desired state:

meditation must free the soul from all care, especially the meditation

of death, which enables men to see life steadily and see it whole. The

condition which results is a pleasant state, and therefore pleasure is

in a sense the end of life. This statement has unfortunately led to many

errors, and it must not be left unguarded: we must find out the real

meaning of pleasure before proceeding further.

The defence of pleasure as vitae beatae finem is really a defence of

Epicurus, and is put in the form of a discussion on what Epicurus meant

by pleasure. Some writers have represented Epicurus as taking pleasure

in a bad sense: among these Cicero and Athenaeus are most noteworthy:

Seneca, on the other hand, with Plutarch, can be quoted as defending

Epicurus. Cicero seems to have been led astray by considering the

objects which give pleasures (ludos et cantus et formas eas et quibus

oculi jucunde moveantur) and not the state of mind produced. Unless the

pleasure as a mental state is considered there can be no distinction of

good and bad: for the same outward object may affect different minds

differently. Plutarch points out this difference between Epicurus and

Aristippus: the pleasure which Epicurus means is of the mind, that which

Aristippus praises is of the body. Laertius points out other differences.

Aristippus confines the term to pleasure in motu, Epicurus lays more

stress on pleasure in statu or tranquillity. This distinction is the root

of further divergence. Aristippus considers pleasure of the body the only

true pleasure: Epicurus admits or rather emphasises pleasures of mind.

The real difference in these views is to be found quite apart from the

question of sensual or non-sensual pleasures, in the problems of Being

and Change. As Gassendi points out, Pleasure (ἡδονή) has never had a

bad significance in itself. The bad states were such as luxury (τρυφή,

mollities). To view the doctrines of either Epicurus or Aristippus from

the point of view of moral and immoral pleasures is to misunderstand

the whole position: such a procedure is indeed natural to us because we

have become used to the morals of the pulpit, which takes morality as

the presupposition of its ethics: before the religious dogmas became

thus fixed ethical enquiry was the means by which men hoped to attain a

concept of the good, not bolster up with theory what they had already

determined to support. Thus it is a hysteron proteron to condemn a

pleasure as immoral, for the pleasantness may prove the criterion of

moralness. It is true that the teaching both of Epicurus and of the

Cyrenaics was liable to be used as a justification of sensuality; but

originally these thinkers were more concerned with other problems, and

especially whether a pleasure could be anticipated, which Aristippus

denied and Epicurus affirmed. The kind of dialectic employed here can

easily be imagined. Is the pleasure of anticipation a future pleasure

or a pleasure referred to the future? What is the relation of time

involved in this? Is not all pleasure present pleasure, and will it not

therefore be advantageous to concentrate our powers upon the present?

Is not rest a ceasing from action, and therefore from the (active)

enjoyment of pleasure, a lapsing from life to nirvana? At this last point

the externality of Aristippus’ view shows itself only too plainly: the

quies or rest of contemplation is not a ceasing from all action: it is

the highest activity, though it may not go beyond the subject. In these

differences of opinion about becoming and movement we must look for the

roots of the more superficial divergences of Epicurean and Cyrenaic

doctrine. If we can get rid of those ideas of pleasure which attach

themselves exclusively to the senses, we shall see that in its broader

sense pleasure is the very essence of life. This broader sense Epicurus

must have taken: he considers pains of mind greater than pains of body,

and never ceases to insist on the place due to pleasures of mind. Taking

it in this comprehensive way, we may say virtue and pleasure are as

inseparable as the sun is from the day: true pleasure flows from virtue,

and they are by nature one (virtutem esse causam felicitatis effectricem).

We may pause here to ask what is meant by ‘true pleasure.’ It seems as

though vera felicitas was an ambiguous term in Gassendi. So far as we

concern ourselves with pleasure, true must either mean belonging to a

normal constitution or must carry with it suggestions of some criterion

other than pleasantness. We may of course take up the narrow position

of some critics of psychological hedonism and say that pleasure admits

of no modifications except in the way of quantity. But this criticism,

if relevant to later doctrines, would not touch Gassendi, whose whole

attitude of mind precludes the possibility of so abstract a view. He

would consider it a mockery of moral philosophy to set up pleasure in

the sense of pleasantness, felt pleasure, as end or criterion. It is not

enough that you as man find pleasure in the deed: you as moral subject

must first prove yourself a fit judge. This brings us in sight of an

old circle: we seem on the verge of being told that we ought to pursue

pleasure and that we ought to find pleasure only in that which we ought

(for other reasons) to pursue. We do in fact end in a dictum like that

of Aristotle: a true pleasure is such as a true man feels, and if this

avoids the difficulty of the man who finds happiness in evil, it none the

less gives us a concrete norm.

Gassendi’s solution, if such it be, of the problem exhibits some familiar

elements. To go back to the question of kinds of pleasure. Though some

say all pleasure is good, all pain bad, it is true that sometimes

pleasure is postponed to pain and vice versa. The fallacy is discovered

in the absolute use of the term pleasure: Epicurus recognised several

kinds, some in tranquillitate, some in motu, including profligatorum

voluptates. But this is not quite an accurate statement: pleasure is

not quite a motion, it is rather ‘condimentum actionis,’ a pervading

sweetness. Moreover the suggested distinction of motus animi and motus

corporis is false: if the mind moves there must also be corporeal

movement. Is pleasure essentially good (sua natura bonum). Epicurus

thought so: Antisthenes denied it: the Stoics classed it as indifferens:

some distinguish good and bad, and some say it is good, but not the

highest good.

The conclusion runs thus: all nature seeks what is natural to it, and

therefore seeks what is good and pleasant. Bad pleasures must then be

due to some taint and to the fault of the agent. As the good is per se

attractive, all pleasures must be desirable. The reason why a pleasure

is rejected is generally some anticipated evil consequence, _e.g._ when

we refuse to eat the honey because we suspect that it is poisoned.[97]

The proof that animals have connate desires for what is pleasant is taken

from Cicero. About this there are two points to be noticed: these connate

desires are apparently to be regarded as conscious purposes but without

proof of this consciousness: secondly, the passage in Cicero makes the

end self-love not pleasure. It is obvious that, do what we may to clarify

Gassendi’s statements, confusion must remain, for we have no clear

distinction between three very different ideas.

The Good may mean

(1) That which is good for the animal according to the divine plan, or in

the sight of God. This may be different for each being, but it is such

as fulfils that creature’s wants, if those wants be regarded from an

external point of view, such as might be ascribed to God.

(2) That which is good for the creature who regards himself as part

of a system and has a rational comprehension of ends higher than his

individual satisfaction.

(3) That which the creature thinks to be his good.

Of these three the first is not properly in the sphere of ethical

considerations at all, while the third is a question of illusion, since

it is always practically assumed that the agent chooses under some

conditions that warp his natural judgment. In trying to define the end

as both good and pleasant Gassendi errs (in good company, too) by not

seeing that he is arbitrarily modifying both terms, the chooser and the

chosen. Doubtless, given a man whose pleasure was in the good, the good

would be to him pleasant; but an ethic that modifies both terms ceases to

be practical: it becomes imaginary, speculative, and abstract. Love of

God, says Gassendi, is in the highest degree good and pleasant: he means

presumably that it ought to be if it is not. If we revert to man as he

is, can we still maintain these statements? Gassendi thinks we can, and

that is just one more instance of the latent universal. The keynote to

the whole position is to be found in the phrase, ‘omne animal e natura

sua sic comparatur ut natura duce nihil prius requirat’: where natura is

clearly taken in abstraction, as though there were a natura possessed by

all creatures and capable of being held over against the sum of desires.

Such a natura is a deduction from observation, and even if we allow that

man might oppose his idea of the nature of man to his actual nature, as

expressed in his desires, it is clearly absurd to read into the existence

of the animal a duality which reflective thought has constructed.

Gassendi has not properly comprehended the fact that he encroaches on the

metaphysic of ethics in taking the question in this universal way. There

is however another side to his argument, which must not be overlooked. He

is concerned to prove that a good is no less a good for being associated

with pleasure. In words that remind us of Locke’s well-known phrase,

he attributes the association of goodness with pleasure to the act of

God. This seems to be supported by such considerations as the union of

goodness and pleasantness in the acts of procreation or feeding; but it

is significant that the position finds most support from those forms of

life which are furthest removed from full consciousness as we know it,

and for which the goodness as such is presumably non-existent. If we

press the question we fall into paradox: self-sacrifice we find is made

for the pleasure it gives: if Brutus killed his sons it was because his

sons were such as Brutus disliked, and therefore it was a pleasure to

Brutus to kill them: a statement that shows that Gassendi was badly in

need of a distinction between what is pleasurable and what is preferable.

III.

We should almost expect from the position assigned to Pleasure that

it would be pronounced the end of all action. This is modified by a

distinction between goods which are classified as honestum, utile, and

jucundum. The third class is always chosen ob voluptatem: the others

may not be. Psychologically voluptas accompanies desire, and desire is

generated by want. The want comes first, and the object is chosen as

satisfying the want: pleasure ceases with attainment, which in turn

generates a new want. This third class, things jucunda, is meant to

include those that satisfy bodily wants. The first two classes generate

pleasure, because their absence is a want. Of these the class Utile

comprises objects which are not pleasant as acts, but are sought with

reference to the pleasure to be obtained from them. Cooking, building,

and singing are examples. The highest class honestum, including all

honores, causes some difficulty. It has been said that these must be

chosen ‘for themselves’: the honestum is per se dignum. But the worth is

not impaired by any addition of pleasantness; and the desire to divorce

the two is really due to a confusion between seeking a high position and

seeking the material advantages of position. The honestum must be at

least a permanent spiritual attainment: it is only a low mind that seeks

the material advantages by themselves.[98]

IV.

As we foresaw, the practical solution of the question What is the

highest good? has to be attained by taking a concrete example. Though

not explicitly stated, Gassendi clearly holds the opinion that you know

the good man when you see him. In the chapter headed ‘solum sapientem

virtutem moralem amplecti,’ we have an analysis of the good life from

which we may learn the nature of the highest good. This life is ‘maxime

naturalem, maxime obtentu facilem, maxime durabilem, maxime poenitentiae

expertem.’ It is based on tranquillitas animi, which is not a state of

death, but of sustained equilibrium:[99] in it all desires are regulated

and co-ordinated: its end is final, an end in itself, not creating a

condition which is self-destructive, but a persistent state. The good man

will prefer the contemplative life, but not in such a way as to prevent

him from sharing in the activities required of a citizen. In short, the

ideal is the familiar wise man of the Stoics; but there are certain

modifications which detract somewhat from the sternness of that ideal.

To suffer pain bravely is good; to escape suffering is better: goods

of mind are most excellent, but goods of body may be added. The key of

happiness is temperance, and the motto of life should be parvo contentus.

This is the tone of an uncertain age, adopting in its anxiety the lesser

evil. It suited the unstable conditions of life that inspired Stoicism:

it appeals to men still, and cannot lose its charm so long as fortune

remains fickle and life is a waiting for death. Yet would not wealth be

happiness if secure? is it not better to live on a higher level, having

more and spending more? The Roman Empire gave birth to a sick man’s

ideal: the sage was to want little because little was to be had, as the

dyspeptic[100] puts away his desire for the full meal of the healthy: of

mental pleasures he might take his fill, for the hand of the tyrant could

not rob him of his store, but the goods of this world he was to despise,

for they were insecure.

The conception of life which comes down to us from Epicurus is one of

extreme simplicity. It is easy, we are told, to get what is necessary,

and therefore life according to nature is always possible. A quotation

from Porphyry[101] shows how little there was of ‘Epicureanism’ about

Epicurus. Gassendi accepts the natural life of Epicurus as the model: he

is content to prove that his teacher meant by pleasure something more

than self-indulgence, something lofty, spiritual, and in the highest

sense moral. This is good as an apology; but if we are to accept Gassendi

as an independent teacher, it seems impossible to avoid condemning his

position as weak. Mere transference of an ideal from one age to another

must necessarily be weak and shallow: it implies an abstract attitude

of mind refusing to face the new conditions and new problems that time

unfolds: in spite of those elements of life that are always with us, and

those truths which have been uttered once for all, such antiquarian lore

as fills the pages of Gassendi can only be disappointing to a mind that

looks for a theory in touch at least with its own age, if not of value to

later generations.

In one respect perhaps this hardly does Gassendi justice. His insistence

on the point that Pleasure is not opposed to virtue, that we may be both

good and happy, was not merely the formal statement of the Epicurean

as opposed to the Stoic ideal. Asceticism was still an ideal, and in

general men were impressed with the idea that the phrase, ‘virtue

for its own sake,’ had a meaning. What it had come to mean was that

virtue was best by itself, best if you mixed it with nothing, best if

taken in abstraction from the world and all that is worldly. Against

this Gassendi preaches the right of all things in life to their due

recognition; he would have said, with much the same shade of meaning,

that it was ‘better to be worldly than other-worldly.’ Gassendi’s

biography shows that he drifted away from the Church: it was the Church

that had divorced virtue and the best life.

CHAPTER II

THE VIRTUES

The treatment of the special virtues, though containing much that is too

trite to need recording again, adds a few points that are necessary to

complete our view of the Ethics.

The word ‘virtue’ is not to be taken to denote manliness, as its

derivation might suggest, or a specific function, such as is meant in

phrases like ‘virtus equi.’ By virtue is meant a habit of the mind by

which we are rightly disposed toward our affections. It would have been

more accurate to have said organism instead of mind, and it is clearly

necessary to take animus here in a sense that includes reference to the

bodily conditions. A habit or condition must not be confounded either

with a faculty or an affection, says Gassendi, with obvious reference to

Aristotle.

The animus has two parts, and each has its virtue. A right disposition

of the intellectual part enables it to attain truth when affected by the

objects that appeal to the senses: similarly a right disposition of the

non-intellectual part enables it to attain truth in action, or goodness

when affected by anything that appeals to the passions. It is possible to

regard this second part abstractly and divorce it from the intellect. We

then have such habits and possibilities of right action as are shared by

the brutes, but not completely moral action. To constitute virtue a right

habit must be so based on a right mental state as to be constant and

intentional. This doctrine therefore recognises that goodness is possible

where there is only a low degree of intellect or none at all. At the same

time the degree of morality must be judged relatively to the degree of

intellectual power possessed by the agent. As Gassendi does not discuss

the question of merit it is not easy to determine the significance of

this point. The statement that virtue requires knowledge may have either

of two meanings: it may imply that the agent must be conscious of the

end aimed at, that is consciously adopt a course as good for him: it may

also imply that the agent must know how the end he adopts is related to

other ends, and ultimately to the universe of ends. It is in the second

sense that Gassendi seems to use the phrase, but only with the intention

of dividing the ethical from natural virtues or the ‘nativam in Appetitu

aptitudinem ad virtutem.’ Consciousness of the end adopted is naturally

connected with the subject of merit, because it is not infrequently

assumed that goodness is proportionate to the difficulty of choice, or

briefly, the greater the struggle the better the man. We are therefore

left in twofold darkness when neither merit nor the need of conscious

choice is fully treated. Some further light may be got from the following

discussion of the mean. The Stoics considered the mean was a pollution

of virtue, a compromise between extremes of vice, and in itself

nothing. Gassendi replying in support of the doctrine, emphasises the

distinction between qualitative and quantitative means. In Ethics we have

to deal with qualitative distinctions, and our mean is in se quid, not

a vanishing point between extremes but an extreme itself. This decision

enables our author to deal very sensibly with another question. As the

extreme states are due to excess of passion, ethical theory had tended

to associate with the mean state the absence of all passion. The Stoics,

considering that the passions were in the rational part of the soul,

saw no way short of complete eradication. Epicurus, on the other hand,

declared the principal part of the soul to be free from passion. This

puts the passions in the position of matter, upon which the moral agent

may work and makes possible their permanent retention. The wise man of

the Stoics was to be devoid of passion: the ideal of Epicurus found room

for pity and anger, tears and sighs. There is however nothing which could

lead us to suppose that Gassendi or his teachers attained to the idea of

passions as natural forces which could be employed for good: they are by

nature bad, without reference to the objects concerned: consequently the

only choice is between extermination and limitation. The former leaves

us with a purely intellectual state, and if this is not satisfactory we

must take the second, admitting that an immoral affection is moral if

sufficiently limited. But this is exactly what Gassendi repudiates as a

Stoic heresy when put in the form ‘virtue is a mean between vices,’ or a

mean vice. He points out that a curve ) passing into ( is not a curve at

all at the mean point [)|(]; and so with our vices, of which however he

gives no example. The fallacy of the position seems to lie in the failure

to distinguish the passion from its object, and so, for example, make

room for righteous indignation beside bad temper, or the sorrow of the

afflicted beside the self-abandonment of suicide.

One satisfaction remains: our ethic will at least deal with human nature

and leave us our natural material. More than that, it will assert the

unity of virtues, on the very sound principle that if we deny the

unity we make virtuous acts and not virtuous natures the ground of our

judgment. What has been said already on the necessity of virtue being

a habit helps us out here. We are not good for the sake of being good:

the pure love of virtue is nonsense: we are good to be happy. As all

virtue tends to happiness the virtues satisfy the scholastic condition

and are one both in origin and end, arising from Prudence and ending in

happiness. The sceptic sneers at the suggestion that virtue always makes

for happiness, and it can hardly be reckoned among the propositions

proved by Gassendi. There is none the less much truth in the corollary

that the good man finds happiness in virtue: if he does not, the

virtue must somehow be foreign to his nature: fear of the law must be

coercing him or even a guilty fear of God; and this is not that state of

tranquillity which is the crown of the man whose good actions flow from

the right disposition of his soul and body.

The special virtues are divided into four classes—Prudence, Temperance,

Fortitude, and Justice. In addition to these main heads there are other

subdivisions which are differently enumerated by different writers.

Aristotle himself speaks of several virtues not named in this first

general division. The scholastics desired to elaborate such general

heads as would include all the nameable virtues, and finally produced

the following scheme. First, there are the three parts called Subjectae,

seu species: ‘deinde Integrantes, seu quas instar partium totum integrum

componentium, necesse est concurrere ad actum perfectum cuiuspiam

virtutis: denique Potentialeis seu quae potentiarum ipsius animae instar

sunt virtutes quasi adjunctae.’ These divisions may be exemplified

by quoting the actual subdivisions of our main classes. ‘Sic parteis

Prudentiae Subjectas distinguunt Privatam Oeconomicam Politicam Militarem

Regiam: integranteis Memoriam Intellegentiam Docilitatem Solertiam

Rationem Providentiam Circumspectionem Cautionem: Potentialeis ...

Eubuliam, Synesin, Gnomen.’

The other virtues can be similarly divided, and the result is a list

which the scholastics at least thought exhaustive of all the known

virtues.

The first and greatest of the virtues is Prudence. This, as we have seen,

is of five kinds—privata, oeconomica, politica, regia, and militaria.

Gassendi deals with it under these heads. He begins with this virtue

because it is, as Epicurus said, ‘caput ac fontem, sic quasi Reginam

atque Principem caeterarum virtutum.’ We deal here with Prudence

‘quatenus est moralis virtus, quae omnes vitae actiones recte moderatur,’

and enables us to rightly distinguish good and evil: it has been well

defined by Cicero as ‘rerum expetendarum scientiam’: it is a habit of

mind ‘non certus (not, that is to say, concerned with necessary and

immutable truths) sed conjecturalis’: it is finally ‘ars vitae,’ and the

essential quality of the practical man who does not concern himself with

the end, but accepting the end without question devotes his energies

to the elaboration of means. The three great functions of Prudence are

bene consultare, intelligere, and finally imperare. The mental qualities

required are sollertia, sagacitas, and all that makes for clear and

prompt judgments on affairs.

We need hardly follow Gassendi through all the ramifications of the

subject: in justice to him be it said that he seems to have omitted

nothing that the good moralist and the conscientious preacher ought to

say. He conducts through all the aspects of life, including the choice

of a profession, the choice of a wife, the duties of man as father,

landowner, master of servants, and, in the wider sphere of the State,

controller of war and peace. It has been said that in these pages

Gassendi shows himself as judicious in his Ethics as he is profound

in his metaphysics; and this we need not deny, though the subject is

less abstruse, in fact somewhat commonplace, and the treatment even

more laborious, with very little that cannot be culled or deduced from

Aristotle.

An interesting discussion arises on the meaning to be attributed to the

phrase, ‘follow nature.’ Epicurus had advocated this course. Gassendi

takes it to mean ‘study your aptitudes’: choose the course of life

that is most suited to your tastes. Whether the doctrine of motion is

the implicit ground for this doctrine or not I cannot say, as Gassendi

gives us no hint; but it would be very natural for a philosopher imbued

with ideas of force and motion to adopt the idea of ‘the line of least

resistance.’ That this is the actual point of view cannot be doubted.

Every man has particular aptitudes: what then is more natural or better

than that he should choose that mode of life which is calculated to

employ and improve those aptitudes rather than limit or destroy them? If

we attempt tasks for which nature has not designed us we make life an

uphill struggle, and labour perpetually ‘Sisyphi instar nixandi.’ This

seems a sensible point of view, but Lactantius did not agree with it, and

made it a subject for censure. Epicurus, he said, aimed at popularity,

and made base concessions to the frailty of human nature. As he states

the opposite argument very fully the passage may be quoted at length:

‘Propterea ut ad se multitudinem contrahat (Epicurus), apposita singulis

quibusque moribus loquitur. Desidiosum vetat litteras discere: avarum

populari largitione liberat: ignavum prohibet accedere ad rempublicam,

pigrum exerceri, timidum militare. Irreligiosus audit deos nihil curare,

inhumanus et suis commodis serviens jubetur nihil cuiquam tribuere: omnia

enim sui causa facere sapientem.’ In these and other respects Lactantius

thinks that vice is encouraged: if you hate your wife it follows you

should leave her: if children dislike their parents it is right to

rebel against them: in short, life should be made easy, and private

inclinations indulged at any cost. Gassendi’s answer to this is that it

is an extreme and unfair interpretation. It was probably very typical of

the treatment which Epicurean philosophy received at the hands of extreme

churchmen. To take one point in illustration. According to Lactantius,

Epicurus says if a man is lazy he need not take exercise: according to

Gassendi the doctrine is, if nature has not intended you to be an athlete

do not try to become one. In other words, while every one may know

something about everything, we must each of us choose some one thing in

which we aim to excel, and the economy of the universe demands that the

occupation chosen should be in harmony with our nature. In this argument

Gassendi was on the winning side.

The second virtue is Courage, sometimes rather unnecessarily labelled

Fortitude, which is ‘quandam animi fortitudinem,’ a fixed mental state

rather than brute force (in ipso robore et viribus corporis). It differs

from Temeritas and Feritas (illa vocata Aristoteli) in being a fixed

disposition of mind, and requiring for its highest realisation a clear

knowledge of the danger which is faced. In reality the virtue is not

primarily concerned with dangers in the ordinary sense of the term:

its permanent function is the maintenance of a conviction once it has

been accepted, and the persistence which endures and overcomes all

difficulties in attaining an ideal. It combines therefore in itself

Constantia et Perseverantia, and its end may be expressed generally as

the maintenance of Justice: it is the spirit which neither does nor

suffers wrong. As a fixed habit it enables us to endure all evils:

these may be public or private: the greatest is exile, but there are

many others, such as infamy, imprisonment, and the loss of friends or

wealth.[102]

Temperance, the third virtue, is to be taken in the Greek sense. It

includes as partes subjectae abstinentia et sobrietas (illam respectu

cibi, hanc respectu potus, says Gassendi, without telling us why

abstinence as such should differ for food and for drink!): as castitas

et pudicitia: as integrantes, verecundia et honestas: as Potentialeis,

clementia, humilitas, modestia itemque mansuetudo, misericordia,

moderatio, decus, studiositas, eutrapelia seu festivitas, urbanitas. This

list certainly does not seem to fail in respect of comprehensiveness.

Justice, the third virtue, is not subjected to analysis under these

standard heads. After remarks based on Aristotle’s discussion of this

subject, we come to the question of the origin of laws. Epicurus had

found the origin of laws in utility (Epicurus omnem juris et aequi

originem ab utilitate repetiit), and had consequently been attacked by

the supporters of the opposite theory that laws are of natural origin.

Gassendi thinks the two theories should be combined if we are to attain

the truth. Man may be regarded either absolutely as ‘solitarius’ or in

his relations as ‘sociabilis.’ Man as ‘solitarius’ finds himself in a

world filled with the gifts of nature, and his instincts lead him to

appropriate them. In addition to these instincts he has the faculty

of self-preservation, with the implied right to retain all that is

necessary for this preservation: here then is the root of the ‘jus

naturale’ (facultas ista est in qua videtur dici posse consistere jus

naturae primarium). But the things so appropriated were originally

given by nature, and therefore the question arises why should one man

have them more than another and ‘inde enascantur rixae, rapinae, odia,

vulnera, caedes’? These somewhat violent relations bring us to the second

stage: quamobrem spectandus iam homo posteriore modo, sive quatenus

sociabilis est, ac in naturae quasi modificatae statu: man recognises

the need of mutual help, and a condition of harmony is brought about by

the aid of laws. Thus nature and utility as principles are reconciled:

Gassendi further recognises that the view of man as solitarius is not

only abstract, but also a pseudo-historical process of accounting for

the evolution of laws which has little probability: so far as we can

say, society is as old as man, and that too not in the sense in which

we speak of brutes as sociable, but in the full sense of a community of

intelligent human beings.[103]

The root then of all law is the natural impulse which drives men to form

societies: for as soon as we get beyond the individual as ‘solitarius,’

we find that life is impossible without mutual agreement or ‘pactiones.’

These first charters are between man and man, not contracts by which they

surrender their liberty to one ruler, but formal definitions of mutual

relations. Gassendi is not concerned to construct a theory in support

of the rights of kings, so that his ‘pactiones’ must be taken to be

agreements between all the individuals in any one society without as yet

any question of a ruler. The law is in fact the true ruler, so that there

is no need to deal with the existence of personal rulers except in so far

as their authority has a natural origin in the necessity of delegating

the task of making the laws of a community to those who are its wisest

and best. The head of the society then is he who has been chosen to

make, explain, and administer the laws: his claim to the position is

contained entirely in his personal character and ability: he rules as the

embodiment of law, not arbitrarily, but acting as the mouthpiece of laws

which are higher and greater than he, rooted in the earth and reaching to

the heavens, the object which all men worship, and in the cult of which

he is ordained high priest.

The jus to which we have been hitherto referring is that known as jus

civile, the recognition of the rights possessed by the member of a

civitas or society as such. This we have seen was based on utility, but

always on a utility which is itself natural: in other words, it supplies

wants which are rooted in the nature of man. There are however other

kinds of jus, such as the jus gentium and jus naturale. As a rule, the

jus gentium was regarded as e natura, even by those who thought the jus

civile owed its origin to utilitas. Gassendi declares that the difference

between the two is purely a question of numbers (discrimen ad magis et

minus): in nature the two are identical, and both are grounded in utility.

Now that we have expanded our view to include all the kinds of Jus, we

must discuss their relative characters. The least comprehensive term

is jus civile, which has already been interpreted to mean the rights

constituted by citizenship. The term jus gentium raises us to the higher

level and a wider outlook. It denotes the rights which men have without

reference to the particular society or state to which they belong, the

rights which they have simply as men. Gassendi here becomes conscious

of a difficulty. The original significance of the phrase jus gentium

has been lost, now that humanity can no longer be divided into Roman

and non-Roman. Consequently, jus gentium approaches very closely to jus

naturale, inasmuch as it indicates rights which men may have apart from

any definite citizenship or special code. To avoid the confusion which

threatens us, we must go further into the question of the scope of the

jus naturale and the limits of jus gentium.[104]

Jus is a term which covers both the facultas and the lex, says Gassendi:

we may therefore look at it from either point of view. Man possesses a

jus naturale in so far as he is an animal and has faculties such as the

faculty of feeling.[104] But the term naturale implies a jus grounded

in a natura and nothing more: since then the plants have a nature and

faculties (such as the facultas sugendi), they must have a jus naturale.

To exactly define what is usually included under jus naturale, we really

require a term ‘jus animale’—or better still, ‘jus humanum.’

I find it difficult to determine the exact meaning which Gassendi

attaches to the phrase, ‘jus is either facultas or lex.’ It seems most

probable that he thought of rights as primarily powers, the possession of

which constituted the individual’s ‘right’ to the advantages derived from

their free exercise. These rights become more extensive as we rise in the

scale of being: the plant has the least, the savage man has more, the

civilised man most. We therefore rise from jus naturale to jus civile:

at the same time the lower species are most comprehensive, and therefore

the jus naturale appears more fundamental in proportion as it is more

universal. This however is only in appearance: the jus naturale, though

applied over a wider area, is in itself more limited than the jus civile:

it is man as bare man that comes under its categories: as citizen man

enjoys laws which, if they are more limiting, are also refined to far

greater exactness. The facultas which constitutes jus must be taken to be

a natural or social endowment which fits a being for certain acts, and as

it implies that nature intended him to fulfil those functions for which

he is thus equipped, it also confers upon him a right to the free use of

those powers in the interests of the universe at large. The plant has

the power of absorbing water, and so has a right to a supply of water:

the animal has a power of feeling and motion entitling him to humane

treatment and freedom. Man as man has the distinctively human faculties,

and with them the privileges of the jus humanum, while the citizen has

the quality of civitas, which is his claim to the highest privileges of

life. Thus we see that rights are grounded in natures, and the nature

of the subject determines the character and limits of the rights. The

nature of a being is therefore best realised under laws that establish

these rights. At first the law seems a limitation of the nature, but a

little reflection shows a different side to the question: if my desire to

harm you is restrained, your freedom is enlarged: if I am not allowed to

take away your wife, at least I may expect to possess my own in safety.

So while the established law hedges me round about, it also provides a

barrier against hostile irruptions.

We now see that the jus gentium can be defined by reference to its

content. If we look for specifically human activities we find them in the

faculties of speech, writing, reasoning, forming societies, and the like.

These as common to all men, but not shared by man with the brutes, must

constitute the sphere of the jus gentium.

The term lex, as opposed to jus, implies a definite contract and an

executive power to enforce obedience. There is therefore no lex gentium

nor lex naturale in the proper sense. There may be such universal laws

as the lex spontanea[105] or law of instinctive action: there may also

be a law of rational action; but this is law in a different sense,

the hypothetical precept which dictates the means for fulfilling some

particular purpose. Though these are not laws in the full sense of the

term, they stand very close to law in the highest and noblest use of the

word. Man has reason: he can therefore see and understand the laws of his

nature in a way that animals cannot: he can identify himself with this

law so that the law of nature becomes _his_ law, the law of his reason,

and finally one with his reason.

Now, taking lex naturalis as the law of human nature and analysing it, we

get the elements of law in its ethical aspect, the elements that is to

say of the laws which are embedded in human nature. In order to ensure

our attaining the original simple laws we must aim at two qualities,

universality and freedom from prejudice; in other words, we must collect

our evidence from a sufficiently wide area and at the same time not allow

any pre-conceived ideas to bias our choice: we then get the following

rules of conduct:

1. The first law instructs us to aim always at the good, which is to be

interpreted as our own good or advantage (primo itaque communissimum,

innatumque adeo est omnibus hominibus, ut quod bonum, quod commodum, quod

gratum fuerit, prosequantur: quod vero malum, incommodum, ingratumque

refugiant). The collateral use of the terms denoting goodness and

pleasantness should be noticed: we shall have occasion to refer to them

later. It follows from this law that we are to love our benefactors and

hate our enemies: from this is derived love of our children, our friends,

and God, as the greatest of benefactors. Gassendi apparently assumes that

all men will regard God as a benefactor: the necessity of worshipping him

rests really on the attitude adopted by the individual, but Gassendi does

not face the problem of those who prefer to ‘curse God and die.’

2. The second law is simple, ‘ut quisque se amet, plusquam ceteros,

seu ut sibi bene quam alteri malit.’ Some writers whom Gassendi

contemptuously calls ‘popular’ have denied this law, but it is regarded

by our author as indisputably natural and original. Thus Egoism is the

point from which we must start: we love ourselves best and with ourselves

all that is peculiarly ours: we benefit our own families before those

of others, and, as the proverb rightly says, begin our charity at home!

From this egoism, if so simple and sensible a doctrine can be called by

that highly technical term, a mild and inoffensive altruism is naturally

derived: in brief, Gassendi says that if you have time and opportunity

there is no harm in doing good to another, provided it entails no loss

to yourself. For example, it is only nice and kind to put the lost

traveller on the right road, if otherwise convenient; and from this

comes profit, for the deed has its reward in that most inestimable sense

of self-satisfaction (conscientia benefacti inestimabilis).

3. The third law is love of life, from which comes the impulse to marry,

beget children, and rear them with all the advantages, such as education,

which one desires for oneself.

4. The fourth law is the love of society which has its root and

beginning in the union of the sexes. It is not unnatural for a man to

love the common good, for he considers that his own is bound up in it.

The concluding remarks are of particular interest, and to ensure their

correct understanding I shall quote the essential passages. As Gassendi

does not divorce the state and the individual, he does not raise the

question as to how an individual, intent on his own good, ever gets to

the point of considering the good of others. From the first the concrete

individual is sociable, and therefore thinks of the public good as only

another aspect of his own, as that in which his own is contained (quo

intelligit contineri suum). The end of society is not realised unless

the individuals enter into it in this whole-hearted way and take it up

into their very natures. They must realise the reciprocity which society

implies and which has been expressed in the fundamental law ‘quod tibi

fieri non vis, alteri ne feceris.’ (I do not know if Gassendi preferred

the negative form for any particular reason.)[106] In addition to this

the citizen must not only abide by the law but also be a law-abiding

creature, he must not only _do_ good but also _be_ good, as Leslie

Stephen has put it. The ideal condition is reached when no laws are

required but all are just by nature.

On these concluding remarks made by Gassendi, Thomas[107] comments thus:

‘Gassendi va même plus loin et ici sa doctrine s’écarte de plus en plus

de celle d’Epicure: Ajoutons-nous, dit-il, que les saints Écritures ont

excellemment dit que ce n’est pas au juste que la loi est imposée: parce

que celui qui est veritablement juste ne l’observe pas par la crainte des

peines que les lois ordonnent, mais pour l’amour même de la justice et

pour la vénération qu’il a pour elle, de façon que quand il n’y aurait ni

lois, ni magistrats, il l’observerait toujours de même.’ ‘On s’explique

mal en lisant ces textes les accusations sévères qu’on a si souvent

portées contre la morale de Gassendi.’ He adds in a note, ‘Cette règle de

Gassendi ne nous fait-elle pas songer à celle de Kant et aux commentaires

qui l’accompagnent? “Agis toujours,” nous dit Kant, “de telle sort que la

maxim de ton action puisse être érigée en loi universelle.”’

On these comments I wish to make a few remarks in order to further

elucidate the view I take of Gassendi’s position and show why I cannot

agree with the suggestion that this is Kantian. Nothing is easier than to

lay hold of the suggestive phrases so often found in Gassendi and make

them appear to anticipate some later doctrines. I do not mean to suggest

that this is a vice to which Thomas is addicted: on the contrary, he

often appears to me to have stinted rather than amplified his author’s

meaning; but this is exactly the sort of point in which two readers of

the same book arrive at different conclusions through holding different

opinions on the way the subject should be studied: it is thus an

excellent opportunity of showing how and why I venture to differ from my

predecessor in the task of expounding Gassendi.

The scope of Gassendi’s ethic is defined by the phrase an ethic of

prudence: however far Gassendi travels from that simple statement he

never pretends to rise above the sphere thus indicated. The very laws

given in detail show how Gassendi’s good man is far more concerned with a

concrete immediate welfare than is Kant’s.

I have not avoided speaking of hypothetical and categorical phases of

the law; but the transition from one to the other can be expressed thus:

the hypothetical law of reason says, ‘if you will to attain this, you

must act thus’: the categorical says, ‘if you are what you are, you must

act thus’; but the former half of the sentence is meaningless and can be

omitted, leaving the simple law, ‘act thus.’ But the being-what-you-are

means being a social creature and implies no transcendental Self, nor

even that semi-transcendental ‘dignity of man’ by which Mill so nearly

arrived at Kant’s position. On the contrary, it is pure common-sense,

as though one should say ‘being man and not angel, you must walk to get

there’: for the ‘must’ refers to the means and not the end which is given

to all, namely Pleasure.

Again, Gassendi’s law is formed by abstracting all special conditions:

it is in that sense a universal law belonging to universal man; but it

is empirical and objective, a solution of the problem of co-existence,

not transcendental or subjective, or one that must be obeyed ‘though the

heavens fall.’ It is true Gassendi says, ‘put yourself in his place’ and

‘do not do unto others what you will not have done to yourself,’ but that

much is in the Bible, and one sentence does not make a theory. Hobbes had

got as far as this without feeling the necessity of going any further;

and as this element in ethics has a very patent origin I prefer to judge

it from the point of view of its antecedents rather than speculate on

its relations to later theories. The point to which I would draw special

attention is the nature of the universality implied in Gassendi’s words.

Kant tells us the supreme principle of jurisprudence is, ‘act so that

the free use of thy elective will may not interfere with the freedom of

any man so far as it agrees with universal law,’ and this is surely what

Thomas should have quoted if anything was to be quoted out of Kant. This

I consider is exactly Gassendi’s meaning, and therefore, so far from

attaining the point of view which Kant would call ethical, he stops at

that which Kant expressly distinguishes as legal and external.

This question of the distinction of legal and ethical principles is

all the more interesting in view of what I consider the real root of

Gassendi’s opinions. If we say that according to Gassendi ethics is a

matter of relations between individuals and therefore always external,

the question is at once asked, ‘What of the clause about the pure love of

justice?’ In my opinion this must be explained by reference to what the

will to be good meant to the lawyer[108]? The influence of philosophy,

especially the Stoic, on Roman law, was to make the emphasis fall on

voluntas. ‘The desire to subordinate form to substance, the word spoken

to the will it was meant to manifest, the abstract rule to the individual

case to which it was prepared to apply it’ was, we are told, strong

in Cicero’s time.[109] Seeing that the pages of Gassendi are full to

overflowing with quotations from Cicero, and the terms used not only

follow a distinctly legal argument, but are themselves legal, we seem

justified in thinking that this juridical development is the source of

Gassendi’s inspiration, and he means no more than that it is better to

understand and acquiesce in the natural laws of society than be one of

the victims of the good men, _i.e._ those who have learned the secret of

successful living. Gassendi may well say ‘be good’ as well as ‘do good,’

since that course will bring most pleasure: the idea of virtue for its

own sake he has already dismissed. It would also be well if that phrase

were discarded by some other writers: it has the appearance of making

its advocate look more like a saint than his fellow-men: in reality it

means nothing, being a stupid abstraction, as though virtue could be cut

off from life, and the good, the beautiful, and the comfortable were not

ideas that reacted on each other.

But if we do not consider that Gassendi has reached the heights of Kant,

if he has most certainly retained much that is ‘pathological’ in his

ultimate, he certainly has, in the words of Lecky, ‘abundantly proved the

possibility of uniting Epicureanism with a high code of morals.’ The tone

throughout is that of the Prudens, the man of even balance and shrewd

foresight, not given to useless asceticism or wasting extravagances,

but withal full-blooded in his righteousness, and rejoicing in a

godliness that is profitable unto all things. If there is nothing of the

self-sacrificing strenuousness that makes Kant’s ethics so exacting and

tense, there is a lofty humanism which strikes the golden mean between

the brute that does not aspire and the god that does not struggle.

CHAPTER III

ON LIBERTY, FATE, AND DIVINATION

The discussion on Liberty, Fate, and Divination forms a metaphysic of

Ethic in so far as Gassendi recognises the necessity of supplying an

argument for the possibility of morality. Ethically, freedom must be

taken to mean responsibility on which depend praise and blame. The common

phrase refers freedom to the will; but the will follows the judgment,

and it is therefore more accurate to refer freedom to the reason. The

real crisis of choice as a psychological act comes when we have the

alternatives before us, and then it is upon the attention that the strain

falls: we feel that strain and recognise that the effort thus made seals

the action as ours.

We must admit then a ratio libera in the sense of a power to choose

under given circumstances one out of the many possibilities. The further

question as to whether we should have preferred other circumstances and

other alternatives is postponed. The essence of liberty is indifference:

some have said complete determination is the highest freedom; but this

Gassendi calls spontaneity or actio e natura, such as is exemplified

in cases of gravitation. There is however a correct use of the term

referring not to natura ipsa but natura informata, the ‘second nature.’

If the will for the good is such that evil is not possible we may say

voluntas sponte agit. As freedom has been assigned to ratio rather than

voluntas the use of voluntas here should be noticed. The spontaneity

of will is a formed habit which has reference only to some limited

sphere: it leaves the reason unfettered, and the whole man is not

completely determined. If we extend spontaneity so as to make all action

so completely determined that only one course is possible, we get the

concept of the Beatus Homo, who, like Aristotle’s perfect man, is not

on the moral scale at all. Freedom to be intelligible at all must be

confined to the region of those that struggle and can err.

Gassendi uses ‘indifference’ in two senses. When we used it above, it

meant freedom from prior determination or from a bias. We may take the

example of the balance: the scales must be equal in weight themselves

if they are to act truly: they must be ‘indifferent’ before receiving

any weights. They may become ‘indifferent’ again, namely when equally

weighted. So the will may be indifferent when the reason has equal

arguments on both sides. Here then the will is indifferent not _to_

but _with_ the arguments, and the indifference belongs properly to the

reason. Apparently will is to be regarded as suffused by intellect,

not intellect by will; and as we are told that Practical Reason and

Appetite are as inseparable as body and shadow, we seem committed to

an intellectualism which entirely overlooks the irrational elements

in human conduct. Here as everywhere we find the concept of the man

who deliberately chooses evil has not yet made a place for itself:

consequently an ethical theory never gets a broader view than that which

an analysis of the typical good man can give. In accordance with this

we get the feeble compromises common to all philosophy of this type:

evil is chosen only sub specie boni: the will is moved by the veri

species which may be germana or fucata. It is interesting to note that

Gassendi seems to throw the blame for wrong judgments not on the mind

but on the species. Human experience goes astray, but there is a lumen

supernaturale, and knowledge of absolute good is absolute knowledge,

which falls outside our sphere.

Having thus defined the nature and sphere of liberty and so dismissed

some errors which were really due to illegitimate use of the term,

we may revert to an ulterior question raised above. I may be free to

choose whether I shall stay on the burning ship or be thrown overboard,

but what if I say I did not choose the situation, and therefore my

freedom is a mockery? That question raises the general problem as to

whether all things are not determined from the beginning of creation,

my circumstances and my choice among them: whether, in short, physical

causation has not already swallowed up liberty. This universal causation

is called Fate or Fortune, and these terms must now be discussed.

The question whether liberty is not precluded by causation takes

two forms according as the causation is purely physical or regarded

as divine: according, that is, as we make it a question of Fate or

predestination. The former is the tenet of the atomic school, as we

have already seen, and Gassendi’s reply is identical in spirit with that

which we have already had from Lucretius: he relies on the immediate

testimony of the moment of conscious choice:[110] whether this is a

consciousness of freedom or only failure to detect determination we are

not told, but probably Gassendi meant more by it than Lucretius did. We

have seen already that Gassendi gives us a clear and accurate account of

the act of choice so far as the psychology is concerned; and his idea of

the difference between the freedom of the will and the freedom of the

reason justifies us in saying that he realised the fact that our mental

processes do not unwind themselves before the reason but are definitely

presented to and sanctioned or inhibited by the reason. There is no trace

of the ‘declination’ theory of Gassendi’s predecessors, which seems to

indicate that Gassendi abandons entirely the attempt to make freedom

consist in irregularity of action, which is all that the bare assumption

of declination could give us.[111] The close union between thought and

movement which Gassendi assumes throughout saves him the trouble of

connecting the freedom of the will with freedom of action: they are

assumed to be the same; but the difficulty of resolves which never result

in action would have been shelved by Gassendi by referring them to the

reason and not the will.

The second aspect of the question is due to theological influences. The

problem is simple, but it may be doubted whether it seemed so simple in

those days as it does now to more rationalistic minds. If, they said,

God foresees action, how can it be free? In order to understand the

problem we must connect it with the older form of the Peripatetics. For

the Peripatetic had already asked whether the truth of the disjunctive

judgment did not prove that freedom was impossible. If it is true that

to-morrow it either rains or it does not, and the one excludes the other,

it follows that the weather for to-morrow is fore-ordained, determined

or necessary, and freedom is illusion. To this the answer was easy:

thought does not determine existence and the necessity of the disjunctive

judgment is not a determination of ‘reality,’ as then conceived.[112]

But if we suppose the mind that judges to be the mind of the Almighty,

the question begins to look serious. To say that God can consider two

alternatives without the slightest idea which will be realised is pure

trifling: when the Thought in question is creative, it seems as though

the thought of the future must be the creation of the future, which

therefore would only await development in time. To this Gassendi’s answer

is that as God foresees the choice so He also foresees the freedom, a

rather subtle turn of dialectic which certainly seems calculated to

throw the ordinary opponent. It is to be assumed that God foresees that

there will be a necessity for choice, and also that choice will be in

accordance with the man’s nature: God’s omniscience therefore enables

him to foresee what the result will be, but that result is left entirely

dependent on the nature of the individual as a free agent. This sort of

argument is none too profitable, and there seems no need to pursue it

further. It might however be noticed that the argument seems to assume

that there is a distinction between the thought of God as knowing and

as creative, possibly due to the distinction in the case of man between

reason and will; and also that it puts indirectly but all the more

effectively the most complete bar to Pantheism that can be imagined in

thus severing the will of man from the will of God.

CHAPTER IV

ON GOD

A word or two may here be added on the nature and attributes of God. We

have already learnt that Gassendi is in direct opposition to Epicurus on

this point. He treats the subject as primarily a question of causality,

and discusses it as the first part of the subject of efficient causation.

The primary efficient cause is God: this is considered to be proved from

the character (as opposed to the nature) of the world. The order of the

universe naturally suggests to the mind the being of some Power that

can regulate and control the march of events. This action is not really

distinct from that of creation, for it was at creation that God gave

to matter certain determinations which it preserves.[113] It is not

enough, says Gassendi, to say that the atoms were created, we must also

allow that they were created in certain kinds. In this point Gassendi

is really enlarging the hint given by Lucretius, who had introduced the

idea of atoms as ‘semina rerum,’ which implies that certain lines of

development were prescribed. The common phrase that one atom unites with

another because it is like it, really involves the same introduction of a

pre-determination of the possible compositions of atoms. Before Gassendi

this argument was used to disprove the necessity of a God. But here

the purpose was really extraneous to the argument: it was the previous

intention of getting rid of that watchful providence which seemed to

Epicurus nothing but a source of fear, that dictated the conclusion.

Gassendi, setting out with the opposite purpose, finds these arguments

equally useful for the purpose of establishing the being of God, and

there is much to be said for his view. He quotes from Lucretius a passage

which shows that this opponent of the gods allows all the facts which he

himself uses in the defence of the one God. We must remember also that

as a believer in the Bible Gassendi would at least be glad to find room

for the idea of special creation: in spite of the obvious connection

between his views and a theory of development, the times were not yet

ripe for any doctrine of the origin of species, and it was tacitly

assumed that in some way or other the species found on the earth were

fixed and immutable. Now, the idea of semina rerum supplies the required

element: if we go right back to the atom as purely indeterminate it

should be possible to get any combinations at any time, and this was

held to be opposed to the laws of regular production. If we stop at

the semina rerum we have our actual elements given with a considerable

amount of determination, and Gassendi seems to have been willing to go a

step further and say that the atoms were not created at first in their

isolation, but in complex masses which were divisible into atomic parts.

He is at any rate quite clear that to begin with the atom is a purely

abstract and hypothetical result, which could only be asserted to be in

harmony with reality if it solved all our problems, which it does not.

We are compelled to deduce from the nature of the universe that there

is something beside the material cause, some Power which can supply the

elements of law and order, which moreover will explain the creation of

the atoms themselves. Thus nature brings us to God both as creator and

as rector of the universe. The concession which is made to science is

that this does not imply perpetual interference: once created with their

guiding determinations the world of matter is left to work out its own

laws.