General principles of political economy such as free-trade in the present day, and all matters which rest on thinking experience, the knowledge of whatever reveals itself in this sphere as necessary and useful, signifies philosophy to the English (Vol. I. pp. 57, 58). The scholastic method of starting from principles and definitions has been rejected. The universal, laws, forces, universal matter, etc., have in natural science been derived from perceptions; thus to the English, Newton is held to be the philosopher par excellence. The other side is that in practical philosophy regarding society or the state, thought applies itself to concrete objects such as the will of the prince, subjects and their ends and personal welfare. Inasmuch as we have an object such as that before us, the indwelling and essential universal is made evident; it must, however, be made clear which conception is the one to which the others must yield. It is in this way that rational politics took their rise in England, because the institutions and government peculiar to the English led them specially and in the first place to reflection upon their inward political and economic relationships. Hobbes must be mentioned as an exemplification of this fact. This manner of reasoning starts from the present mind, from what is our own, whether it be within or without us, since the feelings which we have, the experiences which fall directly within us, are the principles. This philosophy of reasoning thought is that which has now become universal, and through which the whole revolution in the position taken up by mind has come to pass.
1. Buhle: Geschichte der neuern Philosophie, Vol. IV. Sec. 1, pp. 238-241; Quarterly Review, April, 1817, pp. 70, 71; The Works of John Locke (London, 1812), Vol. I.: The Life of the Author, pp. xix-xxxix.
2. Locke: An Essay concerning human Understanding (The Works of John Locke, Vol. I.), Book I. chap. ii. § 1; chap. iii. § 15, § 22.
3. Locke: An Essay concerning human Understanding (Vol. I.) Book I. chap.. ii. § 2-9; § 27;chap. iii. § 1-15.
4. Locke: An Essay concerning human Understanding (Vol. I.) Bk. II. chap. i. § 1, 2.
5. Locke: An Essay concerning human Understanding (Vol. I.), Bk. II. chap. i. § 2-5.
6. v. Schiller's Xenien.
7. Locke: An Essay concerning human Understanding (Vol. I.), Bk. II., chap. ii. § 2, not.; chap.
xii. § 1; chap. xxii. § 2; chap. i. § 10-14.
8. Locke: An Essay concerning human Understanding (Vol. I.), Bk. II. chap. xiii. § 2; chap. iv. §2.
9. Ibidem (Vol. I.), Bk. II. chap. xiv. § 3.
10. Locke: An Essay concerning human Understanding (Vol. II.), Bk. II. chap. xxiii. § 1, 2.
11. Ibidem (Vol. I.), Bk. II. chap. xxi. § 1.
12. Ibidem (Vol. II.), Bk. II. chap. xxvi. § 1.
13. Ibidem (Vol. I.), Bk. II. chap. xxi. § 7.
14. Ibidem (Vol. I.), Bk. II. chap. xiii. § 17, 18.
15. Locke: An Essay concerning human Understanding (Vol. I.), Bk. II. chap. viii. § 9-26.
16. Locke: An Essay concerning human Understanding (Vol. II.), Bk. III. chap. iii. § 6; § 13, 15.
Section Two: Period of the Thinking Understanding Chapter I. - The Metaphysics of the Understanding B 2. HUGO GROTIUS.
Hugo Grotius was studying the laws of nations at the same time as Locke; and in him the very same methods may be found as those already mentioned, inasmuch as he also falls into a quite empirical system of associating nations with one another, combining with that an empirical mode of reasoning. Hugo van Groot, born 1583 at Delft, was a lawyer, fiscal general, and council pensionary; in 1619, however, he was implicated in the Barneveldt trial, and was compelled to fly the country. For a long time he remained in France, but in 1634 he entered the service of Queen Christina of Sweden. In 1635 he was made Swedish ambassador in Paris, and in 1645 he died at Rostock, while on a journey from Stockholm to Holland.(1) His principal work, De jure belli et pacis, he composed in 1625; now it is not read, but at one time it exercised a very great and important influence. In it Grotius presented a comparative historical account, the material of which was partly derived from the Old Testament, of the manner in which nations in the various relationships of war and peace have acted towards one another, and what usages they held to be binding. The following may serve as an example of his empirical method of reasoning: Prisoners ought not to be killed; for the object is to disarm the enemy, and if this end be attained nothing further should be done.(2) This empirical way of connecting facts had the effect of bringing general comprehensible and rational principles into consciousness, of making them recognized, and of causing them to be more or less acceptable. Thus we see principles set forth, respecting the righteousness of a king's power for instance; for thought applied itself to everything. We are unsatisfied by such proofs and deductions, but we must not overlook what is thereby accomplished; and this is the establishment of principles which have their ultimate confirmation in the objects themselves, in mind and thought.
B 3. THOMAS HOBBES.
