Thomas Hobbes

“ The first use of language, is the expression of our conceptions, that is, the begetting in another the same conceptions that we have in ourselves; and this is called TEACHING; wherein if the conceptions of him that teacheth continually accompany his words, beginning at something from experience, then it begetteth the like evidence in the hearer that understandeth them, and maketh him know something, which he is therefore said to LEARN. But if there be not such evidence, then such teaching is called PERSUASION, and begetteth no more in the hearer, than what is in the speaker, bare opinion. ”

“ And yet every man thinks that in this subject he knoweth as much as any other; supposing there needeth thereunto no study but that it accrueth to them by natural wit; though they play, or employ their mind otherwise in the purchase of wealth or place. The reason whereof is no other, than that in their writings and discourses they take for principles those opinions which are already vulgarly received, whether true or false; being for the most part false. There is therefore a great deal of difference between teaching and persuading; the signs of this being controversy ”

“ How by Language Men Work Upon Each Other's Minds 1. Having spoken of the powers and acts of the mind, both cognitive and motive, considered in every man by himself, without relation to others; it will fall fitly into this chapter, to speak of the effects of the same powers one upon another; which effects are also the signs, by which one taketh notice of what another conceiveth and intendeth. Of these signs, some are such as cannot easily be counterfeited ”

“ There be two sorts of men that be commonly called learned: one is that sort that proceedeth evidently from humble principles, as is described in the last section; and these men are called mathematics; the other are they that take up maxims from their education, and from the authority of men, or of custom, and take the habitual discourse of the tongue for ratiocination ”

“ Another use of speech is the expression of appetite, intention, and will; as the appetite of knowledge by interrogation; appetite to have a thing done by another, as request, prayer, petition; expressions of our purpose or intention, as PROMISE, which is the affirmation or negation of some action to be done in the future; THREATENING, which is the promise of evil ”

“ On the other side, those men who have written concerning the faculties, passions, and manners of men, that is to say, of moral philosophy, or of policy, government, and laws, whereof there be infinite volumes have been so far from removing doubt and controversy in the questions they have handled, that they have very much multiplied the same ”

“ Forasmuch as whosoever speaketh to another, intendeth thereby to make him understand what he saith; if he speak unto him, either in a language which he that heareth understandeth not, or use any word in other sense than he believeth is the sense of him that heareth ”

“ And this appeareth most manifestly to them that have considered the divers subjects wherein men have exercised their pens, and the divers ways in which they have proceeded; together with the diversity of the success thereof. For those men who have taken in hand to consider nothing else but the comparison of magnitudes, numbers, times, and motions, and their proportions one to another, have thereby been the authors of all those excellences, wherein we differ from such savage people as are now the inhabitants of divers places in America ”

“ For from the studies of these men hath proceeded, whatsoever cometh to us for ornament by navigation; and whatsoever we have beneficial to human society by the division, distinction, and portraying of the face of the earth ”