which would prevent them from being interpreted in a wholly different light. The strong and autocratic government which it is his desire in the 'Leviathan' to see firmly established, however absolute it may be, is yet shown to have sprung from something like popular choice, and that which has made can also unmake. From his own premisses a different conclusion might be drawn, as we can see by the political speculations of both Locke and Rousseau, the first of whom proved the right of the people to change their choice of sovereign, and the second justified the popular obliteration of the ancien régime. Indeed, Hobbes's own practice dealt a blow at his theory, for he found it not inconsistent with his principles to live under the protection of Cromwell and the Parliament. complexion of his political theory was in reality due to his personal feelings, which were both timorous and worldly. Personal security (not self-realization or a desire for progressive welfare,) is therefore the aim of those who established an 'imperium,' and Hobbes affords an instance-almost a melancholy instance-of the extent to which political necessities and the accidents of personal disposition can interfere in the logical evolution of a philosophical system. He was a radical in the garb of a conservative, a freethinker enlisted in the service of reaction.

The

The personality of Hobbes was neither pleasing nor attractive. He was prematurely born owing to the fright his mother experienced at the news of the Spanish Armada of 1588, as he tells us himself:

Atque metum tantum concepit tunc mea mater,
Ut pareret geminos, meque Metumque simul.
Hinc est, ut credo, patrios quod abominor hostes,
Pacem amo cum Musis, et faciles socios."*

It is doubtful, however, whether Hobbes is right in saying that he is devoted to peace and agreeable companionship; a more vain and combative person rarely existed. In his youth, Aubrey + tells us, he was "unhealthy, and of an ill complexion (yellowish). From forty he grew healthier, and then he had a fresh ruddy complexion. His head was of a mallet form; his face was not very great-ample forehead, yellowish reddish whiskers, which naturally turned up, below he was shaved close, except a little tip under his lip; not but that nature would have afforded him a venerable beard, but being mostly of a cheerful and pleasant humour, he affected not at all austerity and gravity, and to look severe." His portraits (in the National Portrait Gallery, and in the rooms of the Royal Society at Burlington House) give the appearance of a somewhat stern but not unhandsome man. Far more

unpleasing pictures than that of Aubrey are, however, to be found in the writings of Hobbes's contemporaries. He seems indeed to have been the terror of

his age.

"Vita carmine expressa."-Molesw. vol. i. p. lxxxvi.

'Life of Mr. T. H. of Malmesburie.' 'Letters,' &c. of Aubrey, vol. ii.

‡ Cf., for instance, Hcoke's description, Boyle's Works, vi. p. 486.

"Here lies Tom Hobbes, the Bugbear of the Nation, Whose death hath frightened Atheism out of fashion,"

was a scurrilous epitaph composed for him. Amongst the crowd of pamphlets, sermons, treatises aimed at his doctrines, there was an ingenious little book written by Thomas Tenison, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, which appeared in 1670, and was entitled 'The Creed of Mr. Hobbes, examined in a feigned conference between him and a student in divinity.' It proves, as well as any other, the general opinions held about the philosopher.

You have been represented to the world," says the student to Mr. Hobbes, whom he meets at Buxton-well,* "as a person very inconversible, and as an imperious dictator of the principles of vice, and impatient of all dispute and contradiction. It hath been said that you will be very angry with all men that will not presently submit to your dictates; and that for advancing the reputation of your own skill, you care not what unworthy reflections you cast on others. Monsieur Descartes hath written it to your confidant Mersennus, and it is now published to all the world, that he esteemed it the better for himself that he had not any commerce with you (je juge que le meilleur est que je n'aye point du tout de commerce avec luy); as also, that if you were of such an humour as he imagined, and had such designs as he believed you had, it would be impossible for him and you to have any communication without becoming enemies.' And your great friend, Monsieur Sorbière, hath accused

*The Creed of Mr. Hobbes,' p. 5.

you of being too dogmatical; and hath reported how you were censured for the vanity of dogmatizing, between his Majesty and himself, in his Majesty's Cabinet. You are thought, in dispute, to use the Scripture with irreverence." Tenison cannot, indeed, deny the excellence of his style. "He hath long ago published his errours in Theologie, in the English tongue, insinuating himself by the handsomeness of his style into the mindes of such whose Fancie leadeth their judgements; and to say truth of an Enemy, he may, with some reason, pretend to Mastery in that Language."

Yet he cannot forbear to have a cut at Hobbes's personal timidity.

"They (the Student and Mr. Hobbes) were interrupted by the disturbance arising from a little quarrel, in which some of the ruder people in the house were for a short time engaged. At this Mr. Hobbes seem'd much concern'd, though he was at some distance from the persons. For a while he was not composed, but related it once or twice as to himself, with a low and careful tone, how Sextus Roscius was murdered after supper by the Balneæ Palatinæ. Of such general extent is that remark of Cicero, in relation to Epicurus the atheist, of whom he observed that he of all men dreaded most those things which he contemned, Death and the Gods."

The system of Hobbes is then reduced into twelve Articles, "which sound harshly to those professing Christianity," under the title of the Hobbist's creed :—

"I believe that God is Almighty Matter; that in him

there are three Persons, he having been thrice represented on earth; that it is to be decided by the Civil Power whether he created all things else; that Angels are not Incorporeal substances (those words implying a contradiction) but preternatural impressions on the brain of man; that the Soul of Man is the temperament of his Body; that the very Liberty of Will, in that Soul, is Physically necessary; that the prime Law of Nature in the Soul of Man is that of temporal Self-Love; that the Law of the Civil Sovereign is the only obliging Rule of just and unjust; that the Books of the Old and New Testament are not made Canon and Law, but by the Civil Powers; that whatsoever is written in the Books may lawfully be denied even upon Oath (after the laudable doctrine and practice of the Gnosticks) in times of persecution when men shall be urged by the menaces of Authority; that Hell is a tolerable condition of life, for a few years upon earth, to begin at the General Resurrection; and that Heaven is a blessed estate of good men, like that of Adam before his fall, beginning at the General Resurrection, to be from thenceforth eternal upon earth in the Holy Land." *

There is caricature in all this, but not so extravagant as to prevent it from being a fair picture of Hobbes as he appeared to a contemporary divine. Fortunately, as Samuel Johnson had his Boswell and Goethe his Eckermann, so Hobbes had an indulgent biographer in Aubrey. Hobbes, like an elder philosopher with whose nominalism * 'Creed of Mr. Hobbes,' pp. 7, 8.