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ism rather than final cause was the principle applied in accounting for the constitution and construction of things. Greatly impressed by the mechanical conception of nature, Hobbes not only made use of the principle of mechanism in the explanation of so-called physical phenomena, but extended it beyond the sphere of physical science into the domain of psychological, social, political, and ethical phenomena; and, as before stated, quoting the words of Falckenberg, "Mechanism applied to the world gives materialism applied to knowledge, sensationalism of a mechanical type; applied to the will, determinism; to morality and the State, ethical and political naturalism." It is indeed in the application of this principle of mechanism, which he had received from his age, to the explanation of ethical and political life, resulting in "ethical and political naturalism," that much of Hobbes's historical significance as a writer on ethical and political subjects lies. One of the principal reasons why he is called the father of modern ethics is his treatment of ethics from this naturalistic standpoint, and thus he proves to be the first to liberate ethics from the domination of theology. Even Bacon, who stands out so conspicuously as the foe of scholasticism, did not succeed in freeing ethics entirely from theology. Indeed, he acknowledges "that a great part of the law moral is of that perfection whereunto the light of nature cannot aspire." The "light of nature" is simply "sufficient to check the vice, not to inform the duty."[1] We are dependent on revelation for the latter.
IV.
Influence of the Speculations of Hobbes.
The doctrines of Hobbes exerted a marked influence on contemporary and subsequent thought. Warburton says:
- ↑ Sidgwick, Outlines of the History of Ethics, p. 158.