HERBERT, EDWARD, Lord Herbert of Cherbury, born at Montgomery Castle in 1581, was educated at Oxford:
Herbert. He was presented to Queen Elizabeth in 1600, and was made Knight of the Bath on the accession of James I. In 1608 he visited France, where his high sense of honour, along with his courage in a duelling age, opened up to him a ready means of distinguishing himself. In 1610 he served under Maurice, Prince of Orange, at the siege of Juliers, where he displayed a courage bordering on rashness. In 1614 he set out again to fight under the same leader against the Spaniards. Thereafter he went to Italy, and returning, was entrusted by the Duke of Savoy with the project of conducting 4000 Languedoc Protestants into Piedmont. This having been forbidden by Marie de Medicis, Herbert was arrested, but immediately set at liberty. Whilst preparing himself for new exploits he was appointed in 1616 ambassador extraordinary to France by James I., for the purpose of renewing the alliance between England and France. He provoked the determined hostility of the Duke de Luynes, Constable of France, who sent his brother to the English court to complain of Herbert. He was recalled in consequence; but on the death of De Luynes he was re-appointed and invested with still greater powers. In 1625 he was created peer of Ireland, under the title of Baron of Castle-Island. In 1631 he was created baron of England, under the title of Lord Herbert of Cherbury. His castle was destroyed during the civil wars of Charles I. He died in London on the 20th August 1648, aged sixty-seven.
Besides being a brave soldier and an accomplished gentleman, Herbert is to be ranked as an acute and original thinker. While at Paris in 1624 he published his treatise, De Veritate prout distinguitur a revelatione, a verisimilitudine, a possibili, et a falso. Professing to have studied carefully the writings of many authors, sacred and profane, he declares himself unable to arrive at a complete notion of truth. He accordingly turns to the examination of self. Against absolute dogmatism he holds it as a matter of fact that we do not know all things, while against absolute scepticism he holds that we do know some things. Between these extremes truth is to be found. Still farther, we are endowed with certain faculties which enable us to undertake the search after truth. These faculties, then, must be carefully examined as to their laws and their relation with objects. After this must come the work of separating the true from the probable, the probable from the possible, and the possible from the false. Above all, credulity is to be guarded against. Like Des Cartes he starts from consciousness. As the result of his investigation, he considers the mind not as a tabula rasa, but a book closed; and the action of the external world becomes the occasion of the opening of the book. Hence material objects, as only the occasion, are not the cause of true knowledge. Herein his system is substantially the same as Kant's. Starting with seven common notions or maxims which he considers will be admitted by all who seek truth, he proceeds to make a fourfold division of truth:—1st, Truth in the agreement of a thing with itself; 2d, Truth in the agreement between the appearance of a thing and the thing itself; 3d, Truth in the agreement between the conception of our faculties and the objects; and 4th, Truth in the necessary agreement between these different kinds of conformity. Of these four the most important is the last, or truth of intelligence, which is independent of the senses. When sound, both bodily and mentally, these truths impress us as if they came clear from heaven to enable our minds to decide regarding what passes before us in the external world.
Herbert divides the faculties of knowing into four,—the natural instinct of reason, internal sense, external sense, and reasoning. The instinct of the reason is that faculty by which we seize "common notions." Internal sense is twofold,—it informs us what is passing within ourselves, as well as what are our relations to the world. External sense
makes us cognizant of the form, position, and constitution of external objects. By the reasoning or discursive faculty we seize the points of difference or agreement, of opposition or harmony of concepts. Defective as this fourfold division is, Herbert frequently confounds the instinct of the reason, the internal sense, and the discursive faculty.
In turning to revelation, Herbert lays down five maxims or common notions, which form the foundation of all true religion:—1st, There is a Supreme Being; 2d, Man should worship this Being; 3d, Virtue is the principal part of this worship; 4th, Repentance expiates faults; 5th, There must be a future state in which virtue is rewarded and vice punished. What is false does not exist per se. Truth is the basis not only of truth, but even of error. Error is truth incomplete, obscured, mutilated. His Tractatus de Veritate, &c., was republished in 1645, along with a new one, De religione Gentilium errorumque apud eos causas. He wrote also an account of the reign of Henry VIII. His Autobiography was not published till 1764. Some posthumous poems of no great merit were also published.
His views, both in philosophy and religion, encountered very great opposition during his life. Hobbes, Locke, and Gassendi attacked the one; and as to the other, the theologians of the period condemned him as the leader of the Freethinkers. However, he professed great respect for religion, and regarded Christianity as the most beautiful of religions. It is not a little remarkable, that notwithstanding his objections to a partial revelation he professes most seriously to have had his doubts settled as to the publication of his treatise De Veritate, &c., by praying for a divine intimation, which he declares was granted him.