H O B B E S ' S THEORY OF CAUSALITY

AND ITS ARISTOTELIAN BACKGROUND

Causality is without doubt one of the main topics of Hobbes's phi-

losophy. Quite justifiably, F. Brandt stated that Chapters 9 and 10 of De

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Corpore, which expound Hobbes's doctrine of causality, are the most
crucial ones ever written by Hobbes.1 According to Hobbes the quest for
causes is the quintessence of all philosophical inquiry. "Philosophy is such
knowledge of effects or appearances, as we acquire by true ratiocination
from the knowledge we have first of their causes or generation. And again,
of such causes or generations as may be from knowing first their effects."2
Although this definition as such is quite peculiar and fraught with diffi-
culties, the description of philosophy in terms of causal knowledge is in
itself rather traditional. Hobbes himself admits that he follows the Aris-
totelian dictum scire est per causas scire ("to know is to know by means
of causes").3 However, although Hobbes agrees with the Aristotelians that
knowledge bears a causal character, he fundamentally disagrees with diem
as to "what he saw to be genuinely causative."4 Hobbes's doctrine of
causes may be seen as a systematic attempt to discard the scholastic view
on causality and replace it with strict mechanistic explanatory principles.
Therefore, Hobbes's theory of causality can only be understood properly
if we put it against its scholastic background, which is the line of inter-
pretation followed in die present article. It will be made clear that
Hobbes's relation to scholasticism is rather complex, ranging from
downright rejection to the adoption of terminological distinctions as well
as of specific arguments and doctrines.
An investigation of Hobbes's links witii scholasticism runs into some
problems of its own. First of all, Hobbes often deliberately simplifies
scholastic views, so that it is sometimes difficult to decide what may have
been the specific doctrine he is hinting at. Further, like most 17th-century
philosophers Hobbes unfortunately does not comply with the modern

"Hobbes's Theory of Causality and Its Aristotelian Background" by Cees Leijenhorst,

The Monist, vol. 79, no. 3, pp. 426-447. Copyright © 1996, THE MONIST, La Salle, Illinois 61301.
 HOBBES'S THEORY OF CAUSALITY 427

habit of citing sources. For reasons not to be elaborated here, I work with
the assumption that Hobbes's scholastic sources are not so much to be
found in high scholasticism (Thomas Aquinas, Ockham, Scotus), but
rather in the scholastic textbooks and manuals of the 16th and early 17th
centuries, i.e., notably the Jesuit Commentaries (Suarez, Toletus, Pereira,
the Conimbricenses), and Protestant, mainly Calvinist manuals (Alstedt,
Goclenius, Keckermann). However, as will be made clear, there are only
a few cases in which we can pin down a direct influence of a specific
author. Usually we can only indicate a general background. Inevitably, our

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treatment of the scholastics is therefore sometimes rather gross and gen-
eralizing and overlooks the many subtle differences between scholastic
authors.
This essay discusses five main topics of Hobbes's doctrine of causes.
Each section will start with an investigation of the relevant evidence of the
Short Tract, Hobbes's first known philosophical manuscript.5 Then I will
consider how these ideas are taken up in Hobbes's later works, notably De
Corpore. I will first discuss Hobbes's definition of causality. Then I will
investigate Hobbes's notion of necessity and necessary cause. Further-
more, I will consider Hobbes's rejection of scholastic final and formal
causes. Finally, Hobbes's causal theory of perception will be dealt with. In
view of the limited space available, the present essay does not go into
Hobbes's intricate discussion of method6 and the vexed question concern-
ing the status of causal explanation in Hobbes's political philosophy and
the relation between physical and political science.7

1. Hobbes's definition of causality

Although in the Short Tract Hobbes offers a definition of necessary
cause, he does not define what a cause simpliciter amounts to. Instead, he
discusses the notion of agent, which he later on, rather causally and
without further argumentation, equates with the concept of efficient
cause.8 The agent is characterized as being "that which has power to
move" (I P.3), whereas the patient is "that which has power to be moved"
(I P.4). Further, agents and patients are described as being substances in
which active and passive power inhere, respectively.9
All this is in itself rather traditional. To begin with, already in
Aristotle we find a discussion of causality within the context of agents and
patients working on each other.10 The doctrine that active and passive
428 CEES LEIJENHORST

power are inherent accidents is also part and parcel of scholastic natural
philosophy.11 The scholastics maintained that agents act on patients by
means of inherent "active qualities,"12 also known as active faculties or
powers.13 Fire can heat my hand by means of its inherent heat. The heating
itself can be considered as an activation or actualisation of this heating
power, just as it can be seen as an actualisation of the "passive" elemen-
tary heat that is inherent in my hand.14
Although the framework of Hobbes's account of agents may be tra-
ditional, its content seems to be the product of a transformation, or even a

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downright rejection of the scholastic tradition. Whereas in the scholastic
view an agent can effect four kinds of change (metabole/mutatio) in a
patient: local motion, augmentation and diminution, qualitative change
(alteratio) and substantial change (generatio et corruptio), Hobbes seems
to reduce these to only one type of change: local motion. Already the de-
finition of agent and patient as having power to move and to be moved,
respectively, seems to indicate this. This impression is reinforced by the
11th Principle of the First Section which at first sight stipulates that an
agent can effect two kinds of change, local motion and alteration; "An
Agent produceth nothing in the Patient, but Motion, or some inherent
forme."15 However, each time this principle is invoked, Hobbes rejects the
second possibility in favour of the first one.16 Both the production of a
"Phantasma" and the "Act of Sense" are interpreted in terms of local
motion instead of in terms of qualitative change or alteration. Moreover,
although in the Third Conclusion of Section III, Hobbes does not specifi-
cally refer to the principle mentioned, the same dichotomy can be found
there. Qualities such as light, colour and heat are not "qualities actually
inherent," but "nothing but the several Actions of Externall things upon
the Animal spirits."17 In sum, although Hobbes's agents share important
traits with the scholastic ones, they appear also seriously handicapped
when compared to them. Whereas the latter ones can effect four kinds of
change in their patients, the Hobbesian ones seem to be able to produce
local motion only. In other words, Hobbes combines an Aristotelian
dynamic definition of causality in terms of active and passive powers with
an anti-Aristotelian reduction of change to local motion.
We should, however, not interpret this in the sense that Hobbes takes
over an Aristotelian formal framework and subsequently fills it with strict
kinetic mechanicism.18 To begin with, there is no strict kinetic mechani-
 HOBBES'S THEORY OF CAUSALITY 429

cism in the Short Tract. The first two principles of the first Section seem
to contain an implicit idea of inertia: "That whereto nothing is added, and
from which nothing is taken, remains in the same state it was," and "That
which is no way touched by another, hath nothing added to, nor taken
from it." The term 'state' seems to denote motion as well as rest.19 In other
words, the two principles leave room for the doctrine that motion
continues, as long as it is not impeded or "touched." This conclusion,
however, which as such would strike a definitive blow at the power-act
distinction,20 does not appear explicitly in the Short Tracts Moreover, the

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Short Tract contains the disconcerting notion of agents acting by means of
"active power actually inherent" which is in no way to be reduced to
"motion received from another."" In other words, the mechanistic causal
chain of agents producing motion in patients, which in their turn produce
motion in other patients, seems to break here. All this confirms Brandt's
statement that the Short Tract is somewhere half-way between an Aris-
totelian dynamic conception of motion and strict kinetic mechanicism.23
In the same vein, Hobbes's dynamic definition of causality in terms of
active and passive powers seems to be a relic of the Aristotelian tradition
rather than an Aristotelian formal definition adopted in view of the
purpose to subject it to a thorough critique "from within."
In his subsequent works,24 Hobbes tries to free himself from this
Aristotelian heritage. He first develops a notion of causality that leaves
out the power-act distinction. Then, he reinterprets this distinction in
mechanistic terms. Again, the context of the discussion of causality is that
of agents working on patients, or more specifically, of agents creating or
destroying accidents in the patient. These accidents are called effects.25
This constitutes a doctrinal precision as compared to the Short Tract, in
which effects were implicitly treated, but never explicitly defined as
accidents. More important, however, is the reduction of accidental active
and passive powers to mere accidents. Agents and patients do not work on
each other because they are agents and patients simpliciter, but because
they are this or that agent and patient. In other words, they work
"according to some certain accident or accidents, with which both it and
the patient are affected; that is to say, the agent hath its effect precisely
such, not because it is a body, but because such a body, or so moved."26
Taken together, the accidents of the agent and those of the patient form
one single cause, the causa integral or entire cause, "the aggregate of all
430 CEES LEIJENHORST

the accidents both of the agents how many soever they be, and of the
patient, put together; which when they are all supposed to be present, it
cannot be understood but that the effect is produced at the same instant;
and if any one of them be wanting, it cannot be understood but that the
effect is not produced."28 The efficient and material cause are parts of this
entire cause, being the accidents in the agent and patient, respectively.29 In
contrast, the Short Tract seems to follow the scholastic identification of
agents and patients on the one hand and efficient and material causes on
the other.30 In other words, since agents and patients are substances, by

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implication these causes also seem to have a substantive, independent
status, which they have lost in De Corpre.
In sum, the notion of causality in De Corpore is more abstract than
the dynamic conception presented in the Short Tract. The predominant
vocabulary is no longer that of powers and acts but that of accidents:
effects are accidents, active and passive powers have become mere
accidents, and causes are nothing but aggregates of accidents. This move
fits in the general orientation of De Corpore which in spite of its title deals
with accidents, i.e., with our ways of considering bodies, not directly with
those bodies themselves which are supposed to exist outside of us.31
In close parallel to the notion of cause, dealt with in the ninth chapter
of De Corpore, Hobbes develops his own version of the power-act dis-
tinction in the tenth chapter. The two pairs of concepts are said to be
realiter identical, "though, for divers considerations, they have divers
names."32 The terms 'cause' and 'effect' refer to a causal connection that
has already occurred in the past, whereas the terms 'power' and 'act' refer
to a causal connection that will take place in the future. The equivalent of
the entire cause is the potentia plena ("entire or plenary power"). Just as
in the case of the entire cause, also a plenary power, the moment it truly
is a plenary power, cannot but produce its effect, or else it would not be a
plenary power.
Subsequently, Hobbes reduces active power, i.e., the power of the
agent, to motion. Since the cause of motion in a patient cannot be but a
motion of the agent, the efficient cause is nothing but motion. Because the
efficient cause and active power are realiter identical, active power is
nothing but motion as well.33 All this constitutes a radical breach with the
Aristotelian dynamic conception of causality, which defines motion as the
fulfillment or actualisation of the potential qua potential. There are no
 HOBBES'S THEORY OF CAUSALITY 431

longer any inner potentialities that may or may not be fulfilled. There is
only actual motion necessarily giving rise to other actual motions.
A last remark on the mode of causation seems to be in order. In De
Corpore, Hobbes makes it clear that causation should not be understood
as the transference of an accident from one body to another, but rather as
the generation of new accidents in the patient. For instance, if I write, the
motion of my hand does not go into the pen, since "for so the writing
might be continued though the hand stood still; but a new motion is
generated in the pen, and is the pen's motion."34 The background of this

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is the doctrine that, as the Short Tract puts it: "No accident can be locally
moved out of his Subject."35 The rejection of the transference model of
causality is a locus communis of scholasticism.36 Thomas Aquinas (Summa
Theologiae I, a. 115) already claims that the same heat cannot at the same
time be in the fire and the heated object. The fire can, however, produce
its specific like in other objects. Thus, Hobbes clearly follows the scholas-
tic anti-transference model of causality on this point.

2. Hobbes's concept of necessity

It has already been noted that the Short Tract does not give a defini-
tion of cause simpliciter, but concentrates on the notion of necessary
cause instead. Indeed, necessity is one of the main themes of this early
manuscript, notably of its first section. The framework for this discussion
of necessity is provided by three Principles (12 to 14). The first of these
contains a traditional definition of necessity: "Necessary is that which
cannot be otherwise."39 The second and third Principle characterize neces-
sary and sufficient causes, respectively. "A Necessary cause is that, which
cannot but produce the effect."40 "A Sufficient cause is that, which hath all
things requisite to produce the effect."41 In one form or another, both de-
finitions can also be found in scholastic manuals.42
The interesting part of the discussion, however, is to be found in the
Conclusions, notably in the 11th one: "A Sufficient Cause is a Necessary
Cause". The argument for this bold thesis is as follow: "That cause which
cannot but produce the effect, is a Necessary Cause (by the 13. prin:) but
a sufficient cause cannot but produce the effect, because it hath all things
requisite to produce it (by the 14. prin:) For if it produce it not, Somewhat
else is wanting to the production of it, and so the cause is not a sufficient
cause, which is contrary to the supposition." The argument is in fact a very
432 CEES LEIJENHORST

old one43 and revolves around the notion of external impediment, which
in the traditional Thomistic view, defended by the Jesuit commentators,
exactly makes up the whole difference between a sufficient and a
necessary cause. A fire may have all conditions required, in other words,
have sufficient power, to burn a piece of wood, but may nevertheless be
impeded in doing so, for instance because a strong wind or a sudden
shower intervenes. We can speak of an action or cause being necessary if
and only if there is a sufficient cause and absence of impeding circum-
stances. In other words, the necessary cause is a compositum of the

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sufficient cause plus absence of external impediment. The "trick" of
Hobbes's argument is to blur, without further argumentation, the distinc-
tion between internal conditions and external circumstances, by taking
them both to be "things requisite to produce the effect." By implication,
then, the distinction between sufficient and necessary cause is no longer
valid either.
The argument may be based on a petitio principii, it does, neverthe-
less, have serious implications. Concomitant to the distinction between
sufficient and necessary causes, the scholastics distinguished two types of
necessity, viz. absolute or simple necessity and hypothetical necessity. Hy-
pometical necessity is the necessity which is at work if some goal is to be
attained. As an explanatory device, it plays an important role in Aris-
totelian biology. If a living thing is to be there, certain organs and certain
materials necessarily have to be there too. Conversely, the presence of
those organs must be explained by reference to this goal. On the other
hand, Aristotle speaks of simple necessity in cases where some require-
ments or conditions being given, a certain result must follow. In the realm
of nature it applies to what commentators have named "material" or even
"mechanical" necessity. One of the common examples is the hardness of
iron. This hardness is not due to any particular goal, but must be ascribed
to the fact that iron is the material it is. However, material necessity
functions within, and is subservient to, the general framework of hypo-
thetical necessity, which regulates sublunary nature.44 If a donkey must be
produced we need in any case two other donkeys (for the moment, let us
forget about genetic manipulation). However, if we have two donkeys, it
is not absolutely necessary that another donkey will ensue. Again, there
may be all kinds of impeding circumstances which prevent nature from
attaining its natural goal. These impeding circumstances are responsible
 HOBBES'S THEORY OF CAUSALITY 433

for deviations in nature, for the production of monstra, in sum: for con-
tingency.
On the basis of his rejection of the distinction between sufficient and
necessary causes, Hobbes explicitly denies any form of contingency. The
twelfth Conclusion of the First Section states "Every effect produc'd hath
had a Necessary Cause," whereas the Thirteenth Conclusion says "Every
effect to be produc'd shall be produc'd by a Necessary Cause." The first
defends an absolute necessity as far as the past is concerned, the second
rejects the existence offiituracontingentia. In both cases the argument is

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the same: every effect must have a sufficient cause. Since it has been
proven that every sufficient cause is a necessary cause, all effects have
been and will be produced by a necessary cause. Again, the argument is
not entirely convincing. It is apparently based on a non-valid bi-implica-
tion: if there is no sufficient cause (-iA), there is no effect (-iB), so if there
is an effect (B), there is a sufficient cause (A). In other words, there are no
grounds for the assumption that effects without sufficient causes, such as
spontaneous generation or miracles, could not exist.
The Fourteenth Conclusion may be read as a confirmation of the in-
troduction of absolute necessity, developed by the previous Conclusions:
"Necessity hath no degrees." This proposition refers to the doctrine of
gradus necessitatis, as it can be found, e.g., in Combach, who distin-
guishes between absolute or simple necessity which can only be found in
God and several "lesser" degrees of necessity, among which are physical
or hypothetical necessity.45 By means of this conclusion, Hobbes makes it
clear that absolute necessity is all-pervasive, and in any case is not re-
stricted to God alone.
This all-pervasiveness is driven to its utmost consequence in the
Corollary to the 11th Conclusion. So far, we had assumed that Hobbes
was talking about what the scholastics would call agentia naturalia
(Natural agents), and that accordingly he would argue for a strict natural
determinism.46 As yet, it is not clear whether this determinism applies to
agentia voluntaria, i.e., to human beings, as well. The Corollary answers
this question: "[A Sufficient Cause is a Necessary Cause] Hence it follows
that the definition of a Free Agent, to be that which, all things requisite to
worke being put, may worke, or not worke, implyes a contradiction." It
has already been shown that this definition is a direct quote from Suarez's
Disputationes Metaphysicae.41 Suarez makes it clear that this concept
434 CEES LEIJENHORST

only applies to agentia rationalia, i.e., human beings which can exert or
suspend an action, even if all required conditions are fulfilled and there is
no external impediment given. I may have a strong urge to buy the huge
ice-cream I see before me, and all circumstances may be perfect (e.g., I
have enough money in my wallet) but even then I could listen to reason
and just pass the ice-cream stand. Hobbes's argument against this notion
of free will is as simple as it is effective. Granted, as the scholastics would
have it, that human volition can be described in terms of sufficient and
necessary causes, there is no reason at all why the reduction of sufficient

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to necessary causes would not apply to agentia voluntaria as well.48 Thus,
agentia voluntaria are subsumed under the heading of agentia naturalia
and the notion of human free will is rejected on formal grounds. In the
passage under scrutiny Hobbes does not dwell on the mode of this sub-
sumption and the question in what manner human actions form part of
universal determinism. These matters are explored in the Third Section of
the Short Tract, which will be discussed below.
The theory of necessity and necessary causes as it is presented in the
Short Tract has been taken over completely in Hobbes's later works. In
fact, the precise textual parallels between ST I C. 11-13, Of Liberty and
Necessity (EW IV, 274f.) and DCo IX, 5 have been adduced as providing
conclusive evidence for Hobbes's paternity of the Short Tract.49
An important but obvious addition in Hobbes's later works as
compared to the Short Tract concerns the notion of contingency.50 Hobbes
states that usually those events are called contingent of which we do not
know the necessary cause.51 Usually, we erroneously translate this sub-
jective state of not-knowing into an objective state of affairs, by
considering the events in question to be the product of non-necessary
causes. According to Hobbes, our knowing or not knowing of the
necessary causes does not make those causes a bit less necessary. He
therefore proposes a new definition of relative contingency that is in line
with his universal determinism. Those events which do not have a causal
relation are called contingent upon each other. In Liberty and Necessity,
Hobbes gives the well-known example of a walk which is overshadowed
by a heavy rain shower: "when a traveller meets with a shower, the
journey had a cause, and the rain had a cause sufficient to produce it; but
because the journey caused not the rain, nor the rain the journey, we say
they were contingent one to another."52
 HOBBES'S THEORY OF CAUSALITY 435

In line with this reinterpretation of the notion of contingency, Hobbes

also develops an alternative doctrine of propositions concerning futura
contingentia. In this context, he repeatedly attacks the scholastic distinc-
tion between indeterminate and determinate truth.53 According to this
theory, the proposition "tomorrow it will either rain or not rain" has a de-
terminate truth, whereas each of the two separate propositions "it will
rain" and "it will not rain" has an indeterminate truth. Similar to his
rejection of different degrees of necessity, Hobbes also discards the notion
of different degrees of truth. Every proposition concerning futura contin-

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gentia is necessarily true or false, but here again we call those propo-
sitions indeterminate because we are not able to determine whether they
will be true or false. Again, this subjective state does not change in the
least the objective truth or falsity of the proposition in question. Com-
pared to the intricate scholastic doctrine of futura contingentia, Hobbes's
view seems to amount to as big a simplification as his theory of necessity
and necessary causes. By simply leaving out the dimension of time and
any mention of subjectivity, Hobbes can transpose his absolute necessity
into the realm of prepositional truth and falsity as well.
The evidence presented thus far gives rise to the question, whether,
as Brandt has it, the background of Hobbes's doctrine of necessity has to
be sought for in the concept of logico-mathematical necessity. According
to him, the concept of causation "is not formed by analysing the concept
of experience but by analysing the concept of necessity in two domains,
viz. in purely logical thought and in mathematical thought. . . . It is the
logico-mathematical knowledge which to Hobbes is the type of real
knowledge, and it is this which is the basis of his concept of causation, or
rather the concept of causation is identical with this."54 However, we do
not find any mathematical considerations in Hobbes's discussion of
necessity.55 Neither is there any trace of a concept of mathematico-
physical necessity or mathematico-physical law either in the Short Tract
or in De Corpore. Indeed, Hobbes's epoch-making interpretation of the
concept of natural law in political philosophy is not paralleled by a similar
innovation in the field of natural philosophy. In that sense, Hobbes is
clearly not a precursor of the great theorists of mathematico-physical laws
of the Scientific Revolution. As has become clear, Hobbes rather seems to
exploit possibilities that are given within the Aristotelian tradition.
Possibly inspired by determinist strains in Aristotle himself56 as well as in
436 CEES LEIJENHORST

the Aristotelian tradition,57 Hobbes takes the Aristotelian concept of

absolute necessity as an all-pervading determinism, thereby omitting the
finalist framework of which this type of necessity forms part in Aristotle.
Furthermore, the rejection of free will and the insertion of human agency
in the context of natural necessity may have a theological, notably a
Calvinist, background as well.58

4. Hobbes's rejection offinaland formal causes

As has been noted, the First Section of the Short Tract rejects the

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concepts offree cause and free will on formal grounds, whereas the Third
Section investigates how human volition forms part of the framework of
universal natural necessity. There, Hobbes develops a purely mechanistic
explanation of the "Act of Appetite."59 It is described as being nothing but
motion in the animal spirits, caused by the desired object outside of us,
which either moves us to approach it or to retreat from it (in the last case
the object is obviously not desired but despised). The desired object is also
described as being good. Hobbes obviously does not refer to that which is
objectively or absolutely good, i.e., the bonum verum of the scholastic
tradition but rather to that which is subjectively good, i.e., bonum
apparens: "Good hath power to attract. And because that which is
desirable or good to one, may not be so to another, and so what attracts
one, may not attract another; Good is, to every thing, that which hath
power to Attract it." Then follows an interesting comment: "This defini-
tion agrees well with Aristotle, who defines Good to be that, to which all
things are moved,60 which hath been metaphorically taken, but is properly
true; as if we drew the obiect to us, whereas the obiect rather drawes us to
it by locall motion." To any reader versed in scholastic philosophy it must
have been clear that Hobbes refers here to the scholastic doctrine of final
causes. In scholastic philosophy it was a debated question how the
condition that every cause has to precede its effect could be squared with
final causality, in which the goal or final cause is literally the end of the
process of change and therefore does not exist in actu prior to the effect.
The solution was to make a distinction between real and metaphorical
motion: the efficient cause moves realiter whereas the goal is the object
strived for and in that sense does not move realiter but metaphorically.61
Hobbes equates the goal or causafinaliswith the concept of Good,
which is in itself perfectly in line with the Aristotelian doctrine, since
Aristotle himself defines good to be that which all things strive for.62 This
 HOBBES'S THEORY OF CAUSALITY 437

"Good" is described by Hobbes in quasi-magnetic terms as that which has

power to attract or repel us. Then, Hobbes's final step is to interpret this
attraction and repulsion in terms of local motion, instead of in terms of
motus metaphorica. In other words, as the 8th Conclusion summarizes;
"the obiect is the Efficient cause, or Agent, of Desire," i.e., it is not the
final cause of desire. Thus, after having disposed of natural finality and
teleology in the first section, Hobbes also discards final causality in the
realm of human volition. This conclusion is confirmed by De Corpore: "A
final cause has no place but in such things as have sense and will; and this

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also I shall prove hereafter to be an efficient cause."63
In the same vein, this passage of De Corpore also reduces formal
causality to efficient causality. The form is said to be the essence of the
thing. Hobbesfindsit unintelligible how the essence could be the cause of
the thing in question. However, knowledge of the essence of a thing leads
to knowledge of the thing itself, and in that sense the formal cause may be
called an efficient cause as well.*4 Although Hobbes rejects the notion of
a formal cause, he does not altogether dispose of the concept of form or
essence. As in the case of the power-act distinction he rather gives it a
new, mechanistic content. "Essence" is defined as the accident or aggre-
gate of accidents by which we name a body, or which we find character-
istic of a certain body. Beside this extreme nominalist definition we find
in Hobbes also the description of essence as the specific motion of the
internal parts of a body by which it appears to us in a specific way.65 This
leads us to Hobbes's account of perception and his definition of accident.

5. Hobbes's causal theory of perception

As argued in the previous section, Hobbes's rejection of final
causality comes down to a reinterpretation of volition in terms of efficient
causality. This theory of volition is based on a causal account of sensation,
according to which the object causes an image in us which gives rise to
appetite or aversion which finally leads to our going towards or fleeing
from the object. The idea that perception is caused by motion originating
in the objects is one of Hobbes's earliest basic philosophical intuitions, as
he recalls himself in his prose Vita.66 In the Short Tract wefindafirstelab-
oration of this key theme. There Hobbes states that the object sends out
representing species which convey motion to our animal spirits. This
motion in the animal spirits is what Hobbes calls "the Act of Sense."67
438 CEES LEIJENHORST

In his subsequent works,68 Hobbes gives a more sophisticated

version of how the process of sensation comes about, although the basic
causal framework remains the same. As to the transmitters of motion from
the object to the sentient, he now no longer needs the highly problematic
species of the Short Tract, which combine some features of the scholastic
species sensibiles with atomistic characteristics.69 Having possibly been
inspired by the Mersenne circle, he now works with the assumption that
the object conveys motion to us through the medium. He now also
answers the question why we perceive colours, smells and other sensible

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qualities, where perception according to him is nothing but motion. In this
connection, he introduces his physiological doctrine of "rebound": the
motion conveyed by the medium passes through the senses to the brain
and the heart, where it causes a reaction or "rebound" in the opposite
direction, i.e., back to the senses. This is why we think we perceive all
sorts of sensible qualities outside of us, which however in reality are
nothing but motion within us, caused by the external object.70 This
doctrine, according to which "all sense is fancy," has very strong anti-
scholastic overtones. In fact, one of Hobbes's main accusations against the
"schools," which he keeps repeating throughout his works, is that they are
naive realists. Since they believe everything their senses tell them, they
assume that sensible qualities exist outside of us and work upon our
senses by means of species that somehow share those qualities. The
scholastic theory of sense perception consistently applies die principle
that simile generat sibi simile (the similar is produced by the similar):
qualities as perceived must have been produced by qualities in the objects.
In contrast, Hobbes reduces qualitative alteration to local motion and
upholds the strict subjectivity of sensible qualities, a theory which is
already present in nucleo in the Short Tract.11 However, it does not have
yet the central importance it was to gain later on. We may also note by the
way that the doctrine as presented in the Short Tract is not entirely con-
sistent.72
Quite justifiably, it has been maintained that Hobbes's account of
sense-perception forms the starting-point of his Prima Philosophia (Part
II of De Corpore) which discusses the basic concepts of natural philoso-
phy, whereas on the other hand the Prima Philosophia is supposed to
provide the basis for Hobbes's Physics (Part IV if De Corpore), of which
die theory of sense perception forms the principal part.73 The Prima
Philosophia starts with an imaginary annihilation of the entire world, of
which only one man has been excepted. Now, although the objects may
 HOBBES'S THEORY OF CAUSALITY 439

have disappeared, the images caused by them in his mind still remain. He
gives names to these images and starts reckoning with them, i.e., he
employs scientific reasoning. By means of this Gedankenexperiment
Hobbes breaks with any kind of naive representationalism. The universal
concepts dealt with in the Prima Philosophia (space, time, body, accident,
cause and effect) do not have any direct reference to the outside world, but
are our ways of considering this world. In this connection, Hobbes states
that our ideas or images (phantasmata) can be considered in two ways.
Either as real motions inhering in our soul, i.e., as the product of external

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objects, that is, "not as really existing, but appearing only to exist, or to
have a being without us."74 Hobbes then announces that the Prima
Philosophia takes up the latter, "phenomenalist," perspective, where Part
IV will consider the former, "causal" perspective.
However, this phenomenalist perspective is not maintained through-
out. This appears most conspicuously in Hobbes's definition of the
accident in the eighth chapter of the Prima Philosophia. There he
mentions with approval a causal definition of accident as "the manner by
which any body is conceived [modus corporis, juxta quern concipitur],
which is all one as if they should say, an accident is that faculty of any
body, by which it works in us a conception of itself \facultas corporis qua
sui conceptum nobis imprimit]."15 However, this definition only answers
the question why we conceive a thing as we conceive it. It does not say
what this conception itself is. Therefore, Hobbes finally gives his own,
phenomenalist, definition of accident as "the manner of our conception of
body [modus concipiendi corporis]."16
This phenomenalist definition, however, seems to be at odds with
Hobbes's doctrine of the so-called accidentia communia. Hobbes distin-
guishes between accidents which are generable and perishable and those
which are not. The first are all kinds of "fancy" inherent in us, whereas the
second kind comprises only magnitude and motion, which inhere in
bodies themselves and without which a body cannot be conceived. "Those
things the learned call the accidents of bodies, are indeed nothing else but
diversity of fancy, and are inherent in the sentient, and not in the objects,
except motion and quantity."77 As some commentators have noted,78 this
realist conception of accidentia communia seems to be at odds with the
phenomenalist definition of accident as modus concipiendi.
We can, however, go some way towards a solution, if we consider
Hobbes's causal account of intellection, which is developed alongside that
of perception. Already in the Short Tract, Hobbes develops a causal ex-
440 CEES LEIJENHORST

planation of "Understanding" which runs parallel to his account of

sensation.79 In De Motu, Hobbes stresses that all knowledge is nothing but
imagination. This in turn is defined as nothing but "decaying sense."80 In
other words, whereas sensation is the direct, immediate product of the
external object, supposed to be present, imagination is the indirect, so to
speak the by-product of the external object, supposed to be absent.
Hobbes especially develops this causal perspective of cognition or imag-
ination with respect to the concept of space (spatium imaginarium), which
is one of the basic notions of Hobbes's Philosophia Prima.*1 This

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phantasma is an imagination caused by a body, supposed to be realiter
existent and having three-dimensionality. Hobbes stresses the indepen-
dence of bodies from our imagination by stating that even if there were no
imagination, there would still exist three-dimensional bodies in the real
world. This three-dimensionality, which we suppose to be realiter existent
(reale inhaerens) is defined as "corporeity itself, or the simple essence of
the body in as far as it is a body."82 Real space is the cause of our concept
of space {spatium imaginarium),** as indeed in general the external object
is the cause of our knowledge of it: "Since all our knowledge of existing
things is that imagination, which is caused in our sensoria by the actions
of external things, and therefore imaginary space, which is the imagina-
tion of body as such, is identical to our knowledge of body."84
In other words, accidents in the sense of our ways of considering
bodies are not arbitrary, subjective ways of looking at the world, nor are
they to be considered as categories of transcendental subjectivity. They
are rather the product of external motion which is supposed to inhere in a
body, possessing three-dimensional extension, i.e., they are the effects of
the accidentia communia, which are supposed to be out there. Indeed phe-
nomenality itself is, according to Hobbes, an explanandum that has to be
explained in causal terms, i.e., as the product of matter in motion.85 Thus,
the phenomenalist definition of accident presupposes the "realist," causal
definition of accident. Of course, we only arrive at an understanding of the
communia through our representation of the world, i.e., through the
accidents taken as our ways of considering the world. This is why Hobbes
stresses the fact that we suppose the communia to be really out there.
However, according to Hobbes, the fact that motion and magnitude have
a derived existence does not make them any less existent.

Cees Leijenhorst
University of Utrecht
 HOBBES'S THEORY OF CAUSALITY 441

NOTES

1. F. Brandt, Thomas Hobbes' Mechanical Conception of Nature (Copenhagen and

London, 1928), p. 266.
2. Thomas Hobbes, Concerning Body, EW I, 3. References to Hobbes's works are
given according to the Molesworth ed'n. (London, 1839; Reprint Aalen: Scientia, 1966),
"EW" designating the English Works and "OL" the Opera Latina. Volume numbers are in
Roman, page numbers in Arabic numerals. The following abbreviations are used: DCo. =
De Corpore (followed by the chapter in Roman and the article in Arabic numerals); DHo
= De Homine; DCi = De Cive; EL = Elements of Law; L = Leviathan; EEMH = Exami-
natio et Emendatio Mathematicae Hodiernae; LN = Of Liberty and Necessity; LNC = The
Questions Concerning Liberty, Necessity and Chance. The manuscript known as Anti-

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White is cited according to the edition by Jacquot and Jones, Thomas Hobbes, Critique du
"De Mundo" de Thomas White, Introduction, texte critique et notes par Jean Jacquot et
Harold Whitmore Jones, Paris 1973 (abbreviated as DM). The so-called Anti-White
(referred to by Mersenne as De Motu, which is a much more correct title) is a manuscript
written in 1642-43 in Paris at Mersenne's request. Formally, it is a discussion of the work
De Mundo Libri Tres by the English recusant priest Thomas White. However, Hobbes uses
this discussion mainly as a vehicle to make public substantial parts of his De Corpore. In
fact, the space devoted to the actual discussion is by far outweighed by Hobbes's presen-
tation of his own philosophy. On the title of De Motu, see K. Schuhmann, "Hobbes dans
les Publications de Mersenne en 1644,"Bulletin Hobbes VII, Archives de Philosophic 58
(1995), 2-7.
3. EEMH, OLW, 42.
4. T. A. Spragens, Jr., The Politics of Motion. The World of Thomas Hobbes
(Lexington, KY, 1973), p. 28.
5. The Short Tract is the undated, anonymous manuscript found in 1889 by Ferdinand
TOnnies in the British Library. Tonnies gave it the (slightly erroneous) name "A First Tract
on First Principles" and published it as an Appendix to his Elements of Law edition. Its au-
thorship has been a matter of debate ever since its first publication. On the basis of^the
evidence provided by K. Schuhmann, "Le Short Tract, Premiere Oetrvfe Philosophique de
Hobbes," Hobbes Studies 8 (1995), 3-36, we can consider it without reservation to be an
authentic work by Thomas Hobbes, composed in the first half of the 1630's. The-Sfewt
Tract consists of three "Sections," all of which have their own numbered "Principles,"
followed by "Conclusions." Thefirstsection discusses basic notions of natural philosophy
such as causality and motion, the second discusses action at a distance and is mainly
devoted to optics, the third gives a mechanistic account of sensation, cognition and
volition. In what follows, J. Bernhardt's edition of the Short Tract will bejised: Thomas
Hobbes. Court Traite des Premiers Principes. Le Short Tract on First Principles de
1630-31, texte, traduction et commentaire par Jean Bernhardt, Paris 1988. The Short Tract
will be abbreviated as ST, followed by the number of the section (in Roman numerals) and
that of the Principle (P) or Conclusion (C) (in Arabic numerals) in question.
6. For Hobbes's theory of method, see J. W. N. Watkins, Hobbes' System of Ideas: A
Study in the Political Significance of Philosophical Theories, London 1965; J. Prins,
"Hobbes and the School of Padua: Two Incompatible Approaches of Science," Archivfur
Geschichte der Philosophic 72 (1990), 26-^6; R. A. Talaska, "Analytic and Synthetic
Method According to Hobbes," Journal of the History of Philosophy 18 (1988), 207-37.
7. On this topic, see, T. Sorell, Hobbes, (London 1986), and N. Malcolm, "Hobbes's
Science of Politics and His Theory of Science," in A. Napoli (ed.), Hobbes oggi (Milano,
1990), pp. 145-57.
442 CEES LEIJENHORST

8. Cf. ST III C.8: "The obiect is the Efficient cause, or Agent, of Desire."
9. ST I C.5.
10. Aristotle, Physics III, 1-3; De Generatione et Corruptione 1,7-10; De Generatione
Animaliwn, passim.
11. See, e.g., F. Suarez, Disputationes Metaphysicae (Venetiis, 1605), D. XVIII, S. HI:
"satis probabiliter colligit Divus Thomas in omni supposito crreato proximam virtutem
agendi & operandi esse distinctam a substantia eius & consequenter esse accidents." In this
context, Suarez refers to the debate between the Thomists and nominalists such as Gregory
of Rimini who do not accept a real difference between a substance (notably the soul) and
its powers or faculties.
12. The scholastics basically distinguished six active qualities, namely the four ele-

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mentary qualities heat, cold, moist, and dry, as well as gravity and levity as the principles
of local motion. For a discussion of active qualities, see A. Maier, Die Vorlaufer Glilpeis
im 14. Jahrhundert (Rome, 1949), pp. 53-78.
13. The identification of the terms potentia, qualitas and facultas in this connection can
for example be found in F. Suarez, DiM, D. XVII, S. II: "forma substantial non est per
se immediata activa, sed per potentiam quae sit qualitas ab ea distincta: ergo nee formam
substantialem inducit nisi media potentia accidentali" . . . "in rebus naturalibus experimur,
motum localem, etiam maxime naturalem, fieri media facultate accidentali, ut gravitate,
aut levitate."
14. There was a wide-ranging debate as to whether this model was valid for all cases.
It was argued that on the one hand substantial forms could work directly, and without
mediation of their accidental powers. On the other hand, there seemed to be examples of
active qualities working independently of their original substantial forms. See Suarez,
DiM, D. XVII, S. II.
15. Further on, Hobbes speaks about "inherent quality." Traditionally, qualities were
conceived of as accidental or inherent forms, whereas substantial forms were considered
to be intrinsic to natural bodies. See, for example, Suarez, DiM, D. XVI, S. I & II.
16. 5TIIIC.4andIIIC5.
17. Although the meaning of this conclusion is not entirely clear, it seems to present the
first rudiments of one of Hobbes's basic philosophical intuitions: the subjectivity of
sensible qualities. We will come back to this in the fourth section of this paper.
18. This is the general line of interpretation of Spragens. Cf. Politics of Motion, 8:
"Hobbes borrowed the form of the Aristotelian cosmology, but radically refashioned its
substance to accommodate the discoveries of contemporaries such as Galileo. Therefore,
Hobbes's idea patterns parallelled those of Aristotle to an astonishing degree even as he
drastically refashioned their content."
19. In I C.5 and I CIO Hobbes uses the term 'state', and subsequently specifies that in
these cases the term denotes rest, which implicitly acknowledges that it could also denote
motion. The term 'state' no doubt has a scholastic background. Domingo de Soto, for
instance, distinguishes between the status naturalis of living things, which is to move, and
that of non-viventia such as stones, which is being at rest. See Domingo de Soto, Super
Octo Libros Physicorum Aristotelis Subtilissimae Quaestiones (Venetiis, 1582), LII, Q. I,
115.
20. Strict kinetic mechanicism, as it is propounded in Hobbes's later works, accepts the
Aristotelian dictum, omni quod movetur ab alio movetur (everything that moves, is moved
by another). However, in the Aristotelian view the external agent engenders a process of
inner actualisation within the patient. Motion is being defined as afiniteactualisation of
 HOBBES'S THEORY OF CAUSALITY 443

inner potentialities. The stone moves until it reaches its natural place, in which it comes to
rest. According to the mechanicist principle of inertia, however, the motion of a body is
boundless, unless it is impeded by another body. In other words, motion does no longer
have a natural end (in the double sense of the word), and the Aristotelian potentiality-
actuality or power-act distinction becomes superfluous.
21. Even Bernhardt, who goes to great lengths to prove the existence of some form of
the principle of inertia in the ST speaks about "a vague idea" (Bernhardt, Short Tract, 97).
22. I P.9,1 C.8 and I C.9.
23. Brandt, Hobbes'Mechanical Conception of Nature, p. 122.
24. DM, Ch. 35, 377ff; DCo IX and X.
25. DCo IX, l ( O L I , 107).
26. EWI, 121.

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27. The term 'causa integra' has a scholastic background too. Suarez, DiM, D. XIX, S.
I, speaks about the requirements which make it possible that an action comes about:
"Prima est, ut causa habeat integram ac sufficientem virtutem agendi; quae est per se nota,
quia actio supponi debet potentiam sufficientem & ut necessario agaet, supponi debet sim-
pliciter & absolute potens; at non est absolute potens sine potentia sufficiente." The Short
Tract and De Corpore use different terminology, which, however, in all cases seems to
derive from this source or a comparable one. The Short Tract distinguishes between
necessary and sufficient causes, a distinction which is also present in the above-mentioned
• passage of Suarez. De Corpore uses the distinction between causa simpliciter sive integra,
a term which is also present in the above-mentioned passage, and causa sine qua non et
necessarium per hypothesin. Suarez discusses the notion of what is necessarium per hy-
pothesin in the context of an account of contingency and necessity. The fact that in all these
cases Hobbes speaks about causa instead of potentia should not worry us too much, since
he equates power and cause, as we will see shortly.
28. EWI, 121-2.
29. DCo IX, 4 (OL I, 108).
30. Cf. ST III C.*: "the obiect is the Efficient cause, or Agent, of Desire."
* 31. DCo VIII, 1 (OL I, 91). The fourth section of this paper will deal more extensively
with Hobbes's notion of accident.
32. EWI, 127.
33. DCo X, 6 (OL I, 116).
34. EWI, 117.
35. ST I C.4. Cf. DCo VIII, 21, marginal note (OL I, 104): "Accidens non migrare e
subjecto. Neque moveri."
36. See, e.g., R. Goclenius, Isagoge in Peripateticorum et Scholasticorum Primam
Philosophiam (Francofurti, 1598; reprint Hildesheim, 1976), p. 72: "Non potest accidens
materiale migrare de subiecto in subiectum. Tale accidens est calor ignis. Itaque ignis
agens in ferrum, cum id ignit, non tribuit ei suumet calorem eundem numero, sed alium
similem in eo, ut patiente, generat, quern licet dicere eundem specie."
37. See, e.g., B. Keckermann, Systema Physicum (Hanoviae 1613, 1903): "Accidens
omnem suum essentiam & existentiam habet a substantia, ita ut extra substantiam sit
purum non ens, sive nihil, atque adeo extra substantiam ne cogitari quidem possit. Quod
notetur contra Pontificios Missificos, qui fingunt accidentia panis & vini in Missa esse
extra substantiam panis & vini, non considerantes quod accidens totum hoc quod est, sit
per substantium, atque adeo quod extra substantiam fiat purum Non Ens."
38. See, e.g., LIV, 44 (EW III, 610ff).
444 CEES LEIJENHORST

39. ST I P.12. Cf. Aristotle, Metaphysics V (D), 5, 1015 a 34: "We say that that which
cannot be otherwise is necessarily so." Aristotle's works are cited according to the revised
Oxford translation (The Complete Works of Aristotle, ed. by J. Barnes, Princeton, NJ,
1984).
40. S7/IP.13.
41. ST I P.M.
42. See note 26 and B. Pereira, De Communibus omnium rerum naturalium Principiis
& Affectionibus (lugduni, 1588), p. 535: the "causa naturalis sufficiens ad producendum
effectum" is described as "Agens naturale habenas omnes conditiones requissitas ad
agendum." 538: "Agere necessario . . . significat non esse in potestate eius (sc. agentis
naturalis) non agere, si nihil ei deest econum quae requiruntur ad agendum, nullumque

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adest impedimentum . . . hanc esse necessitatem in agentibus naturalibus, ut cum agunt,
necessario agant; hoc est non possint non agere." See also F. Suarez, DiM, D. XIX, S. I,
508: "necessaria actio dicitur quae non potest non esse aut fieri, subintelligendo semper •
illam hypothesim, scilicet positis omnibus requistis ad agendum."
43. Wefindthe same argument already in Avicenna and in a somewhat different version
also in Ockham. Pereira, who is one of Hobbes's possible sources on this point, discusses
the line of reasoning of both philosophers (Pereira, De Communis Principiis, 535:)
"Avicenna concedit contingentiam in rebus humanis que pendent ex libera arbitrio, sed
earn negat esse in rebus naturalibus, hac ratione posita caussa sufficient ad agendum, nec-
essario sequitur effectus, ergo nulla caussa sufficiens in rebus naturalibus, est contingens;
nam si aliquando non producit effectum, id non accidit ob contingentiam, sed ob in suffi-
cientiam caussae. . . . Hanc sententiam Avicennae probat etiam Ocham Quodlibeto I
quaest. 17, hoc argumento. Agens naturale habens omnes conditiones requissitas ad
agendum, non potest non agere hac enim re distinguitur agens naturale ab agente volun-
tario & per electionem: Vel igitur causa naturalis sufficiens ad produccendum effectum,
habet tunc aliquod aliud agens naturale impediens ipsam a productione, vel non habet; si
non habet, ergo tunc necesario producit effectum; sin autem habet ergo illud, cum sit agens
naturale, necessario impediet; quare quidquid tunc eveniet, ex necessitate eveniet."
44. Commentarii Collegii Conimbricensis in octo Libros Physicorum Aristotelis Sta-
giritae (Lugduni, 1594), Lib. II, Cap. IX, Explanatio, 322: Aristotle claims "utramque
necessitatem [sc. simpliciter and ex hypothesi] rebus Physicis inesse: quo pacto ferra
duplicem ob causa dura est, nimirum ratione materiae; quia ferrea & ratione finis, quia ad
secandum est comparata. Addit tamen necessitatem materiae sumi a ratione, idest a forma,
quae finis est generationis." The relation between material and hypothetical necessity as
well as the question of natural teleology in general is still heavily debated in modern
scholarly literature on Aristotle. For a summary of the various positions, see the "Report
on Recent Work" by A. Gotthelf, in Aristotle, De Partibus Animalium [and De Genera-
tion Animalium], trans, with notes by D. M. Balme (Oxford, 1992) pp. 171-72. Most
scholastic commentators tend to take material necessity as subservient to hypothetical
necessity and in general do not seem to pay too much attention to it. In Aristotle himself,
mainly in his biological works, there is, however, a strong emphasis on this type of expla-
nation.
45. I. Combach, Metaphysicorum Libri Duo, editio tertia (Oxonii, 1633), p. 189.
46. Already in I C.l Hobbes talks about things "which have a being in Nature." The
First Section may be seen as a primitive version of the Prima Philosophia ofDe Corpore,
i.e., a discussion of the basic principles of natural philosophy.
47. F. TOnnies, Studien zur Philosophie und Gesellschaftslehre im 17. Jahrhundert (ed.
by E. G. Jacoby, Stuttgart-Bad Canstatt, 1975), 227ff. See F. Suarez, DiM, D. XIX, S. IV:
"causa libera est qua positis omnibus requisitis ad agendum potest agere & non agere."
The same doctrine can also be found in Pereira, L. IX, C. XI, 533: "Contingens naturale,
 HOBBES'S THEORY OF CAUSALITY 445

cum habeat omnia, quae requiiuntur ad agendum, nullumque occurit impedimentum, non
potest non agere & semper agit toto conatu, & contentione suae virtutis, hoc est (ut
loquuntur Philosophi) secundum ultimum suae potentiae; contingens autem voluntarium
non ita est affectum, cum in eus potestate sit agere & non agere & tantam vim ad agendum
conferat, quantam vult, non quantam potest."
48. See also LN, EW IV, 274: "Hence it is manifest, that whatsoever is produced, is
produced necessarily; for whatsoever is produced hath had a sufficient cause to produce it,
or else it had not been; and therefore also voluntary actions are necessitated."
49. Schuhmann, Short Tract, 15ff.
50. This is not the place to go into the status of human deliberation, the relation between
necessity and divine foreknowledge and predestination and other themes of the polemic
with Bishop Bramhall concerning liberty and necessity (See Of Liberty and Necessity [EW

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IV, 229-278]) and The Questions Concerning Liberty, Necessity, and Chance (EW V).
51. DCo IX, 5 (OL 1,115-6).
52. EW IV, 259. See also DCo X, 5 (OL 1,115).
53. DCo X, 5 (OL I, 116); LN (EW IV, 277); DM 392ff; LNC (EW V, 407). In fact, this
argument originates in the polemic with Thomas White who uses this distinction.
54. Brandt, Hobbes' Mechanical Conception, 21 A. Bernhardt has a similar view
(Bernhardt, Court Traite, 86-87).
55. In general, the role of mathematics in the Short Tract seems to be far more modest
than has been assumed by Bernhardt in his Court Traite, pp. 61-87.
56. Interestingly, we find these determinist and mechanistic strains in Aristotle's bio-
logical works, which, together with the Rhetorics, are praised by Hobbes and excluded
from his general critique of Aristotle's work. See J. Aubrey, Brief Lifes, ed. by O. L. Dick,
(London, 1975), p. 237.
57. In this connection, Pomponazzi's De Fato may have been a source of inspiration.
Although Pomponazzi defends a concept of necessity that is in many ways similar to
Hobbes's opinions, it is very difficult to establish a precise influence of the Italian natu-
ralistic Aristotelian on Hobbes.
* 58. See Bernhardt, Court Traite, p. 86; See Thomas Hobbes: De La Liberie et de la
Necessite, introduction, traduction, notes, glossaires et index F. Lessay (Paris, 1993),
46-47.
59. ST III C.7 and 8.
60. As such, this definition does not occur in Aristotle. See Ethics I, 1, 1094 a 2: "the
good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim." See also Rhetorics I, 6,
1326 a 23. This remark seems rather to have been inspired by scholastic definitions of
». natural appetite as that by which everything moves to that which is convenient or "good"
to it. See Combach, Physica (Marpurgi 1620), p. 622: "appetitus naturalis est, secundum
quern unumquodque in id quod est sibi conveniens fertur; ita ut quod grave est habet habi-
tudinem ad locum deorsum, quod leves ad locum sursum Appetitus vero rationalis est,
qui e praevia quadam non tantum cognitione sed & deliberatione fertur in id quod sibi
videtur esse bonum."
61. The basis for this solution is Aristotle, De Gen. et Corrupt. I, 7, 324 b 13: "The
active power (to poietikon) is a cause in the sense of that from which the process origi-
nates; but the end, for the sake of which it takes place, is not active. (That is why health is
not active, except metaphorically) (kata metaphoran)." Cf. Pereira, L. VIII, C. II, 451:
"Efficiens definitur primum principium motus et vocatur primum, non absolute, nam finis
prior est, et ab eo movetur efficiens ad agendum, sed dicitur primum physice, nam causa
que primo movet motu physico, est efficiens; finis enim non movet motu physico sed
Metaphorico, motu nimirum desiderii & amoris."
62. See note 59.
446 CEES LEIJENHORST

63. EW I, q32 (DCo X, 7, 117). "Hereafter" refers to De Homine XI, 2 (OLII, 95-6).
In some scholastic manuals we find descriptions of sensible appetite that come close to
Hobbes's mechanistic account in the Short Tract (see, e.g., O. Casmann, Psychologia An-
thropologica sive Animae Humanae Doctrina (Hanoviae, 1594), p. 132ff). However, the
scholastics always distinguish between sensible appetite and rational volition (voluntas).
Whereas the first may be described in quasi-mechanistic terms, the second is exempt from
natural necessity, being the faculty in which resides human freedom. Thus, as in the case
of the theory of necessity, Hobbes does not so much reject the Aristotelian account of
volition, but erects the Aristotelian account of "lower faculties" into a universal doctrine
of volition.
64. DCoX,7(OLI, 117).

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65. DM 289: "Essentia sive constitutio uniuscuiusque corporis specifica, id est ea per
quam sensibus nostris dissimile apparet caeteris corporibus, in motu quodam consistit
partium eius intemarum."
66. OLI, xxi.
67. ST III C.5.
68. EL I, n (EW IV, 3ff), DM 349ff, DCo XXV (OL I, 315ff) and the tract now called
Tractatus Opticus, which was published by Mersenne in 1644 in his Cogitata Physico-
Mathematica (OL V, 217-48).
69. I have tried to show that Hobbes adopted this peculiar notion of species from the
Italian naturalist philosopher Girolamo Fracastoro. See my "Hobbes and Fracastoro,"
Hobbes Studies (forthcoming).
70. See, e.g., L I, 1 (EW III, 2): [the pressure of the object, conveyed through the
medium causes a] "resistance or counter-pressure or endeavour of the heart, to deliver it
self: which endeavour, because outward, seemeth to be some matter without. And this
seeming or fancy is that which men call sense."
71. 5TIIIC.5.
72. The First Section states that colour inheres in the coloured object (ST I P. 16),
whereas the Third Section colour seems to be understood as a subjective fancy (III C.5).
73. J. Bamouw, "Hobbes's Causal Account of Sensation," Journal of the History of Phi-
losophy 18 (1980), 124-27. A different version of this thesis is presented by Y.-Ch. Zarka,
La Decision Metaphysique de Hobbes (Paris, 1987), pp. 27ff.
74. EWI.59.
75. EW 1,103. DCo VIII, 2 (OL 1,91). It is not entirely clear whom Hobbes is hinting
at. He probably refers again to the scholastic doctrine of active qualities (see sec. 1). As
has been noted, these eat facultates by which bodies work upon other bodies. The quali-
tates sensibiles are also a kind of active qualities and may therefore be seen as the
facultates by which bodies cause images in us. However, thus far I have not found a direct
source of Hobbes's definition.
76. EW I, 104. DCo VIII, 2 (OL I, 92).
77. SPP (EW VII, 28). See DCo VIII, 3 (OL I, 93).
78. See J. Bernhardt, "Grandeur, Substance et Accident: une Difficult^ du De Corpore,"
in Y.-Ch. Zarka and J. Bernhardt (eds.), Thomas Hobbes. Philosophie Premiere, Theorie
de la Science et Politique (Paris, 1990), pp. 39-46; M. Malherbe, "Hobbes et la Doctrine
de l'Accident," Hobbes Studies I, 45-62.
79. ST III C.6. Where the act of sense is the direct effect of the motion of the species,
understanding is effected by mediation of the brain which is "qualifyed with the active
power of the externall obiect."
80. DM 351. There are very close links between Hobbes's account of imagination and
the one developed by Aristotle (mainly in his Parva Naturalia), which is already clear
 HOBBES'S THEORY OF CAUSALITY 447

from the fact that the definition of imagination as "decaying sense' (L I, 2 (EW III, 4)
comes very close to that of Aristotle, Rhetorics I, 11, 1370 a 27 ("imagination is a feeble
sort of sensation"). See my "Motion, Monks and Golden Mountains: Campanella and
Hobbes on Perception and Intellection," Bruniana e Campanelliana (forthcoming).
81. DM 117-18. Hobbes defines spatium imaginarium as the image or phantasm of
body as such or body simpliciter.
82. DM 117 ("ipsam corporeitatem, sive ipsam corporis simpliciter, quatenus corporis,
essentiam").
83. See also EW 1,105: "The extension of a body, is the same thing with the magnitude
of it, or that which some call real space. But this magnitude does not depend on our cogi-
tation, as imaginary space doth; for this is an effect of our imagination, but magnitude the
cause of it, this is an accident of the mind, that of a body existing out of the mind."

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84. DM 117.
85. Cf. DCo XXV, 1 (OL I, 316).