I.John Horne Tooke
I have so far dwelt upon the social and political environment of the early Utilitarian movement;and have tried also to point out some of the speculative tendencies fostered by the position.If it be asked what philosophical doctrines were explicitly taught,the answer must be a very short one.English philosophy barely existed.Parr was supposed to know something about metaphysics --apparently because he could write good Latin.But the inference was hasty.
Of one book,however,which had a real influence,I must say something,for though it contained little definite philosophy,it showed what kind of philosophy was congenial to the common-sense of the time.The sturdy radical,Horne Tooke,had been led to the study of philology by a characteristic incident.
The legal question had arisen whether the words,'She,knowing that Crooke had been indicted for forgery,'did so and so,contained an averment that Crooke had been indicted.Tooke argued in a letter to Dunning(1)that they did;because they were equivalent to the phrase,'Crooke had been indicted for forgery:she,knowing that,'did so and so.This raises the question.
What is the meaning of 'that'?Tooke took up the study,thinking,as he says,that it would throw light upon some philosophical questions.He learned some Anglo-Saxon and Gothic to test his theory and,of course,confirmed it.(2)The book shows ingenuity,shrewdness,and industry,and Tooke deserves credit for seeing the necessity of applying a really historical method to his problem,though his results were necessarily crude in the prescientific stage of philology.
The book is mainly a long string of etymologies,which readers of different tastes have found intolerably dull or an amusing collection of curiosities.
Tooke held,and surely with reason,that an investigation of language,the great instrument of thought,may help to throw light upon the process of thinking.He professes to be a disciple of Locke in philosophy as in politics.
Locke,he said,(3)made a lucky mistake in calling his book an essay upon human understanding;for he thus attracted many who would have been repelled had he called it what it really was,'a treatise upon words and language.'
According to Tooke,in fact,(4)what we call 'operations of mind'are only 'operations of language.'The mind contemplates nothing but 'impressions,'that is,'sensations or feelings,'which Locke called 'ideas.'Locke mistook composition of terms for composition of ideas.To compound ideas is impossible.
We can only use one term as a sign of many ideas.Locke,again,supposed that affirming and denying were operations of the mind,whereas they are only artifices of language.(5)The mind,then,can only contemplate,separately or together,aggregates of 'ideas,'ultimate atoms,incapable of being parted or dissolved.There are,therefore,only two classes of words,nouns and verbs;all others,prepositions,conjunctions,and so forth,being abbreviations,a kind of mental shorthand to save the trouble of enumerating the separate items.Tooke,in short,is a thorough-going nominalist.The realities,according to him,are sticks,stones,and material objects,or the 'ideas'which 'represent'them.They can be stuck together or taken apart,but all the words which express relations,categories,and the like,are in themselves meaningless.The special objects of his scorn are 'Hermes'Harris,and Monboddo,who had tried to defend Aristotle against Locke.Monboddo had asserted that 'every kind of relation'is a pure 'idea of the intellect'not to be apprehended by sense.(6)If so,according to Tooke,it would be a nonentity.
This doctrine gives a short cut to the abolition of metaphysics.The word 'metaphysics,'says Tooke,(7)is nonsense.All metaphysical controversies are 'founded on the grossest ignorance of words and the nature of speech.'
The greatest part of his second volume is concerned with etymologies intended to prove that an 'abstract idea'is a mere word.Abstract words,he says,(8)are generally 'participles without a substantive and therefore in construction used as substantives.'From a misunderstanding of this has arisen 'metaphysical jargon'and 'false morality.'In illustration he gives a singular list of words,including 'fate,chance,heaven,hell,providence,prudence,innocence,substance,fiend,angel,apostle,spirit,true,false,desert,merit,faith,etc.all of which are mere participles poetically embodied and substantiated by those who use them.'A couple of specific applications,often quoted by later writers,will sufficiently indicate his drift.
Such words,he remarks,(9)as 'right'and 'just'mean simply that which is ordered or commanded.The chapter is headed 'rights of man,'and Tooke's interlocutor naturally observes that this is a singular result for a democrat.
Man,it would seem,has no rights except the rights created by the law.Tooke admits the inference to be correct,but replies that the democrat in disobeying human law may be obeying the law of God,and is obeying the law of God when he obeys the law of nature.The interlocutor does not inquire what Tooke could mean by the 'law of nature.'We can guess what Tooke would have said to Paine in the Wimbledon garden.In fact,however,Tooke is here,as elsewhere,following Hobbes,though,it seems,unconsciously.Another famous etymology is that of 'truth'from 'troweth.'(10)Truth is what each man thinks.There is no such thing,therefore,as 'eternal,immutable,everlasting truth,unless mankind,such as they are at present,be eternal,immutable,everlasting.'
Two persons may contradict each other and yet each may be speaking what is true for him.Truth may be a vice as well as a virtue;for on many occasions it is wrong to speak the truth.