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In the previous post of this series on angelology, it was asked what we may deduce about the angelic mind from what we know about our own mind. For Hobbes, the answer to that question is obvious: nothing at all, because conscious states do not give any clue about what they really are, namely physical processes. Therefore, the second question asked about Descartes’ view of angels is even more pressing for Hobbes: How do angels fit into the into the physical world? Even though the ‘Leviathan’ comments extensively on this topic, it is helpful to look first at the accounts of angelic existence given in the ‘Elements of Law’ and ‘De corpore’.

1. Angels and the imagination: ‘Elements of Law’ and ‘De corpore’

Hobbes defines ‘spirit’ in the ‘Elements of Law’ as a

body natural, but of such subtilty [sic], that it worketh not upon the senses, but that filleth up the place which the image of a visible body might fill up. (EoL, I.11.4, 60f)

This definition is very dense and almost incomprehensible as it stands. It is helpful to distinguish the following four propositions contained in it:

(1) Spirits are natural bodies.
(2) They do not make an impression on sense organs because of their ‘subtilty’.
(3) They fill up a place.
(4) This place is in comparable cases ‘filled by an image’.

The clue for understanding this definition lies in proposition (4) which seems to be closely connected to a particular aspect of Hobbes’ theory of space, namely his concept of ‘imaginary space’.

[…] spatii definitionem hanc esse dico, spatium est phantasma rei existentis, quatenus existentis, id est nullo alio ejus rei accidente considerato praeterquam quod apparet extra imaginantem. (DC, II.VII.2, 83)

This ‘representational space’ (spatium imaginarium) consists in a representation of an arbitrary object external to the perceiver and devoid of any aspects that are subject-dependent (secondary qualities like colour etc). But such a representation of a space must itself be caused, namely by extended bodies which exist in ‘space in itself’ (spatium reale) - space insofar as it does not depend on anyone representing it:

Extensio corporis idem est quod magnitudo ejus, sive id quod aliqui vocant spatium reale; magnitudo autem illa non dependet a cogitatione nostra, sicut spatium imaginarium, hoc enim illius effectus est, magnitudo causa; hoc animi, illa corporis extra animum existentis accidens est. (DC, II.VIII.4, 93).

Proposition (4) - ‘spirits fill in the place of an image’ - makes it clear that these spirits are phenomena in imaginary space. We represent them as being in this imaginary space - and this representation is so close to ordinary cases of spatial representation that we are tricked into believing that they are representations of an extended body in real space. So ‘to fill up a place’ (proposition 3) must be read as saying that a spirit is represented as being in a place in imaginary space. But this representation in imaginary space cannot be caused by a real body in the corresponding place in real space, because spirits do not interact with sense organs (proposition 2). The only option left is that spirits are able to interfere with the causal chain leading to ‘phantasms’ (trueful or erroneous sensual representations): And I suggest to interpret the fact that spirits are ‘subtle’ along these lines, as ‘subtle enough to manipulate physiological processes related to perception in our sense organs or our nervous system’.

So spirits in the ‘Elements of Law’ are natural bodies that are imperceptible, but capable of interfering with ordinary perception in such a way that we imagine the presence of an extended body in a certain position in imaginary space, although there is no corresponding extended body in real space causing this perception.

From this Hobbes concludes that judgment concerning the existence of spirits is a matter of faith.

We that are Christians acknowledge that there be angels good and evil, and that there are spirits, and that the soul of man is a spirit, and that those spirits are immortal: […] (Ibid.)

The most conclusive theological evidence can be taken from Scripture. The terms used in the Bible to describe the effects of spirits are all compatible with Hobbes’ view:

But though the Scripture acknowledges spirits, yet doth it nowhere say, that they are incorporeal, meaning, thereby, without dimension and quality; nor, I think, is that word incorporeal at all in the Bible; but it is said of the spirit, that it abideth in men; sometimes that it dwelleth in them, sometimes that it cometh on them, that it descendeth, and goeth, and cometh; and that spirits are angels; that is to say messengers: all which words do imply locality; and locality is dimension; and whatsoever hath dimension, is body be it never so subtile. To me therefore it seemeth, that the Scripture favoureth them more, that hold angels and spirits corporeal, than them that hold the contrary. (I.11.5, 61f)

Moreover, the position of those asserting the incorporeality of spirits is untenable is simply wrong: the notion of incorporeality is self-contradictory and based on misguided assumptions about the physiology of perception (cf. I.11.6, p. 62).

So for the early Hobbes, spirits themselves are corporeal, but imperceptible. We are aware of them, because they interfere with perceptual processes in such a way that we represent them as spatial withouth them being extended in a corresponding place in ‘real space’. Whether or not they exist, is a matter of faith, but evidence from Scripture suggests that belief in corporeal spirits is well-founded. The opposite point of view is self-contradictory.

2. Angels old and new: ‘Leviathan’

Hobbes begins his analysis of angels in the ‘Leviathan’ with a reformulation of his philosophical argument against the conceivability of incorporeal substances. Bodies must be a part of real space and are perceived in imaginary space.

The word body, in the most general acceptation, signifieth that which filleth, or occupieth some certain room, or imagined place; and dependeth not on the imagination, but is a real part of that we call the universe. (III.34.2, 381)

The totality of bodies is the universe, so everything that is in the universe, is a body.

For the universe, being the aggregate of all bodies, there is no real part thereof that is not also body; nor any thing properly a body, that is not also part of that aggregate of all bodies, the universe. (Ibid.)

All bodies are substances that persist through change (i. e. through various modes of perceiving them). Because everything that is real (i. e. a part of the universe) must be a body, and every body is a substance, there cannot be incorporeal substances on pain of self-contradiction:

The same also, because bodies are subject to change, […], is called substance, that is to say, subject to various accidents: […] And according to this acceptation of the word, substance and body signify the same thing; and therefore substance incorporeal are words, which when they are joined together, destroy one another, as if a man should say, an incorporeal body. (Ibid.)

But as we have already seen in the ‘Elements of Law’, Hobbes must explain how such a self-contradictory notion has gained general acceptance. He begins by analysing the common usage of the term ‘body’ which to some extent deviates from its proper philosophical interpretation. Common sense presupposes that bodies resist touch or can be seen. For air, neither of them is true, so ‘aerial substances’ are contrasted with ‘solid bodies’. Such substances are called ‘spirit’.

But in the sense of common people, not all the universe is called body, but only such parts thereof as they can discern by the sense of feeling, to resist their force, or by the sense of their eyes, to hinder them from a farther prospect. Therefore in the common language of men, air, and aerial substances, use not to be taken for bodies, but (as often as men are sensible of their effects) are called wind, or breath, or (because the same are called in the Latin spiritus) spirits; as when they call that aerial substance, which in the body of any living creature gives it life and motion, vital and animal spirits.(III.34.3, 381f)

The second step in this argument again echoes the arguments from the ‘Elements’ and ‘De Corpore’: Occasionally, seeming bodies are represented by us although there is no body in the (‘real’) place corresponding to this representation in ‘imaginary space’. Such ‘idols of the brain’ have natural causes, either the ‘action of the objects’ (previous impressions made on the senses) or the ‘disorderly agitation of the organs of our sense’ (malfunctions in perception).

But for those idols of the brain, which represent bodies to us, where they are not, as in a looking-glass, in a dream, or to a distempered brain waking, they are, as the apostle saith generally of all idols, nothing; nothing at all, I say, there where they seem to be; and in the brain itself, nothing but tumult, proceeding either from the action of the objects, or from the disorderly agitation of the organs of our sense.(III.34.3, 382)

Authority on such questions belongs to specialists investigating causes of phenomena (i. e. philosophers). So Hobbes assumes that there is a division of labour between those who research the origin of spirits and the rest of mankind ‘otherwise employed’. These experts have two options for an answer: They either rely on sight and regard spirits as aerial bodies. Or they put their trust in the sense of touch, because spirits are not impenetrable. Hence, spirits are interpreted either as subtle bodies or as non-substantial ghosts.

And men, that are otherwise employed, than to search into their causes, know not of themselves, what to call them; and may therefore easily be persuaded, by those whose knowledge they much reverence, some to call them bodies, and think them made of air compacted by a power supernatural, because the sight judges them corporeal; and some to call them spirits, because the sense of touch discerneth nothing in the place where they appear, to resist their fingers: so that the proper signification of spirit in common speech, is either a subtle, fluid, and invisible body, or a ghost, or other idol or phantasm of the imagination. (Ibid.)

But this explanation is not true only for spirits in general, but also for angels in particular. The mistaken ‘consensus omnium’ originates in errors of the ‘Gentiles’ (Greek philosophers), because they took ‘idols of the brain’ for real. Such real spirits can either be good (angels) or bad (demons). Jewish thought (maybe, Hobbes is  hinting at the Kabbalah as an important source for Christian angelology?) follows this erroneous argumentation, because Scripture does not prevent it. Nevertheless, angels are supernaturally produced ‘idols of the brain’, the result of Divine intervention. They only exist in our ‘fancy’, i. e. as representations in ‘imaginary space’:

And as the Gentiles did vulgarly conceive the imagery of the brain, for things really subsistent without them, and not dependent on the fancy; and out of them framed their opinions of demons, good and evil; which because they seemed to subsist really, they called substances; and, because they could not feel them with their hands, incorporeal: so also the Jews, upon the same ground, without any thing in the Old Testament that constrained them thereunto, had generally an opinion, except the sect of the Sadducees, that those apparitions, which it pleased God sometimes to produce in the fancy of men, for his own service, and therefore called them his angels, were substances, not dependent on the fancy, but permanent creatures of God ; whereof those which they thought were good to them, they esteemed the angels of God, and those they thought would hurt them, they called evil angels, or evil spirits; […] (III.34.16, 389)

And although Scripture is no safeguard against erroneous views of angels, it can be interpreted as being in in agreement with Hobbes’ explanation of angels as ‘idols of the brain’ - at least as far as the Old Testament is concerned:

But if we consider the places of the Old Testament where angels are mentioned, we shall find, that in most of them, there can nothing else be understood by the word angel, but some image raised, supernaturally, in the fancy, to signify the presence of God in the execution of some supernatural work; and therefore in the rest, where their nature is not expressed, it may be understood in the same manner. (III.34.17, 389)

So, in the ‘Leviathan’ Hobbes draws two conclusions that are compatible with his earlier views on angels. The first: The idea of incorporeal substances is incoherent.

To men that understand the signification of these words, substance, and incorporeal; as incorporeal is taken, not for subtle body, but for not body; they imply a contradiction: insomuch as to say, an angel or spirit is in that sense an incorporeal substance, is to say in effect, there is no angel nor spirit at all. (III.34.21, 393)

The second: the Old Testament allows for angels as ‘apparitions’:

Considering therefore the signification of the word angel in the Old Testament, and the nature of dreams and visions that happen to men by the ordinary way of nature; I was inclined to this opinion, that angels were nothing but supernatural apparitions of the fancy, raised by the special and extraordinary operation of God, thereby to make his presence and commandments known to mankind, and chiefly to his own people.(III.34.21, 393f)

The New Testament, however, forces Hobbes to revise his account and to allow for angels that are substances. If they are substances, they must be (not merely have) bodies, because incorporeal entities cannot be present in space. Incorporeal substances cannot exist in real space, because real space is defined as the extension of bodies. They cannot exist in ‘imaginary space’, because representations in imaginary space must be caused by something in real space. This is why a lack of locality implies, for Hobbes, a lack of existence.

But the many places of the New Testament, and our Saviour’s own words, and in such texts, wherein is no suspicion of corruption of the Scripture, have extorted from my feeble reason, an acknowledgment and belief, that there be also angels substantial, and permanent. But to believe they be in no place, that is to say, no where, that is to say, nothing, as they, though indirectly, say, that will have them incorporeal, cannot by Scripture be evinced. (III.34.21, 394)

So in fact Hobbes regards angels either as spectres or as superhuman (rather than supernatural) beings. In order to exist, they must exist in space - either in imaginary space, as fictions of the imagination produced by Divine will, or in real space, as natural beings created by God.

Stefan Heßbrüggen-Walter

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