Cherbury, and Ben Jonson. He now studied the classical historians and poets, and produced a translation of Thucydides (1628). His pupil and friend dying in 1628, two years after his father, Hobbes spent eighteen months at Paris, and perhaps also at Venice, as tutor to the son of Sir Gervase Clifton. In 1631 he undertook to superintend the education of his first pupil's son, the third Earl of Devonshire, with whom he set off in 1634 on a three years' tour through France and Italy. At Florence

he became inti

mate with Galileo, the

astronomer,

and elsewhere held communication with notable scholars and thinkers. After his return to England in 1637 he resided in the Earl's family at Chatsworth in Derbyshire. He now devoted himself to study, interrupted, however, by the political contentions of the times. His pamphlet De Corpore Politico seemed to bring him into danger of his life,' and he deemed it necessary in the autumn of 1640 to retire to Paris, where he lived on terms of intimacy with Mersenne, Gassendi, and other learned men of the day.

selfish and ferocious animal, requiring the strong hand of despotism to keep him in check; and all notions of right and wrong are made to depend upon views of self-interest alone. Of this Selfish System of moral philosophy Hobbes was indeed the great champion, both in the Leviathan and more particularly in his small Treatise on Human Nature, published in 1650. The freedom with which theological subjects were handled in the Leviathan, its rationalistic criticism

Here he engaged in a controversy about the quadrature of the circle; and in 1647 he was appointed mathematical instructor to Charles, Prince of Wales, then in the French capital. Already he had commenced the publication of those works which he sent forth in succession with the view of curbing the spirit of freedom in England by showing the philosophical foundation of despotic monarchy. The first of them was originally printed in Latin at Paris, in 1642, under the title of Elementa Philosophica de Cive, and was translated into English, in 1650, as Philosophical Rudiments concerning Government and Society. The principles maintained in it were more fully discussed in his larger work, Leviathan: or the Matter, Form, and Power of a Commonwealth, Ecclesiastical and Civil (1651).

Man is here represented as a

came

of Scripture, and its reduction of religion to a department of state morality, as well as its offensive political views, occasioned a great outcry against the author, particularly among the royalist clergy. This led Charles to dissolve his connection with the philosopher, who, according to Lord Clarendon, compelled secretly to fly out of Paris, the justice having endeavoured to apprehend him, and soon after escaped into England (1651), where he never received any disturbance.' 1653 he resumed his relations with the Devonshire household, but remained always in London, and be

was

In

intimate with Selden, Cowley, and Dr Harvey, the discoverer of the circulation of the blood. In 1654 he published a short but admirably clear and comprehensive Letter upon Liberty and Necessity, where the doctrine of the self-determining power of the will is opposed with a subtlety and profundity unsurpassed in any subsequent writer on that much agitated question-indeed, he was one of the first to expound clearly the doctrine of philosophical necessity. On this subject a long controversy took place between him and Bishop Bramhall of Londonderry. Here he fought with the skill of a master; but in a mathematical dispute with Dr Wallis, professor of geometry at Oxford, which lasted twenty years, he fairly went beyond his depth; he had not begun to study mathematics till the age of forty, and, like other late learners, greatly overestimated his

knowledge. He supposed himself to have discovered the quadrature of the circle, and dogmatically upheld his claim in the face of the clearest refutation. In this controversy personal feeling, according to the custom of the time, appeared without disguise. Hobbes having published a sarcastic piece entitled Six Lessons to the Professors of Mathematics in Oxford, Wallis retorted by administering, in 1656, Due Correction for Mr Hobbes, or School-discipline for not Saying his Lessons Right. Here he debates with the philosopher in this unceremonious strain: 'It seems, Mr Hobbes, that you have a mind to say your lesson, and that the mathematic professors of Oxford should hear you. You are too old to learn, though you have as much need as those that be younger, and yet will think much to be whipt. What moved you to say your lessons in English, when the books against which you do chiefly intend them were written in Latin? Was it chiefly for the perfecting your natural rhetoric, whenever you thought it convenient to repair to Billingsgate? You found that the oyster-women could not teach you to rail in Latin. . . . Sir, those persons needed not a sight of your ears, but could tell by the voice what kind of creature brayed in your books: you dared not have said this to their faces.' When Charles II. was restored to the throne he conferred on Hobbes an annual pension of £100, very irregularly paid; but, notwithstanding this and other marks of the royal favour, much odium continued to prevail against him and his doctrines. The Leviathan and De Cive were censured in Parliament in 1666, and also drew forth many printed replies. Among the authors of these the most distinguished was Lord Clarendon, whose Brief View and Survey of the Dangerous and Pernicious Errors to Church and State, in Mr Hobbes's Book, entitled Leviathan, was posthumously published in 1676. In 1672, in his eighty-fifth year, Hobbes wrote his own Life in Latin verse!

He

next appeared as a translator of Homer, publishing a version of four books of the Odyssey, which was so well received that in 1675 he completed his translation, as well as one of the whole Iliad. Here, according to Pope, 'Hobbes has given us a correct explanation of the sense in general; but for particulars and circumstances, he continually lops them, and often omits the most beautiful.' Yet three large editions were required within less than ten years. His prose version of Thucydides his first work, and awkwardly literal-was long the standard English translation. This work was undertaken by him 'from an honest desire of preventing, if possible, those disturbances in which he was apprehensive that his country would be involved, by shewing, in the history of the Peloponnesian war, the fatal consequences of intestine troubles.' At Hardwick and Chatsworth, where he spent the remainder of his days, Hobbes continued to write books, the principal of which, Behemoth, or a History of the Civil Wars from 1640 to 1660, issued surrepti

tiously from the press just before his death at Hardwick Hall, 4th December 1679, in his ninetysecond year. He is buried in the chancel of Hault-Hucknall church, near Chesterfield. Hobbes is described by Lord Clarendon as one for whom he 'had always had a great esteem, as a man who, besides his eminent parts of learning and knowledge, hath been always looked upon as a man of probity and a life free from scandal.' It was a saying of Charles II. in reference to the opposition which the doctrines of Hobbes met from the clergy, that 'he was a bear against whom the Church played their young dogs in order to exercise them.' In his later years he became morose and impatient of contradiction, growing infirmities and too much solitude increasing his natural arrogance and contempt for the opinions of other men. He at no time read extensively Homer, Virgil, Thucydides, and Euclid were his favourite authors; and he used to say that, if he had read as much as other men, he should have been as ignorant as they.' Macaulay pronounced his style 'more precise and luminous than has ever been employed by any other metaphysical writer.' In date Hobbes falls between Bacon and Locke, but in philosophic ideas and temper he is widely separated from either. It is by his contributions to scientific psychology, ethics, and political theory that he takes rank as a profound original thinker. His ethical theory, based on pure selfishness and the arbitrary prescriptions of a sovereign power, negatively determined ethical speculation in England for a hundred years; all the great moralists wrote, directly or indirectly, as his opponents. But his political absolutism is the most famous part of his speculations. The state of nature, he argues, is a state of war and insecurity. Moved by a desire to escape from the intolerable evils of such a condition, human beings enter into a species of contract by which they surrender their individual rights, and constitute a state under an absolute sovereignty. The sovereign power need not be monarchical, but, whatever form it assumes, it is absolute and irresponsible. Hobbes was regarded by his contemporaries and the writers of the next age as the prince of unbelievers, a sort of father of lies, and even, erroneously, as an atheist. Among those who ranged themselves against his philosophy were Cumberland, Cudworth, Shaftesbury, Clarke, Butler, Hutcheson, Lord Kames, Adam Smith, Dugald Stewart, and Stewart's successor, Thomas Brown.

From the Introduction to 'Leviathan.' Nature, the art whereby God hath made and governs the world, is by the 'art' of man, as in many other things, so in this also imitated, that it can make an artificial animal. For seeing life is but a motion of limbs, the beginning whereof is in some principal part within, why may we not say that all automata' (engines that move themselves by springs and wheels as doth a watch) have an artificial life? For what is

the heart but a 'spring,' and the nerves but so many 'strings,' and the joints but so many 'wheels,' giving motion to the whole body, such as was intended by the artificer? 'Art' goes yet further, imitating that rational and most excellent work of nature, man.' For by art is created that great 'Leviathan' called a 'Commonwealth,' or 'State,' in Latin Civitas, which is but an artificial man; though of greater stature and strength than the natural, for whose protection and defence it was intended; and in which the sovereignty is an artificial 'soul,' as giving life and motion to the whole body; the magistrates, and other officers of judicature and execution, artificial ‘joints;' reward and punishment, by which fastened to the seat of the sovereignty every joint and member is moved to perform his duty, are the nerves,' that do the same in the body natural; the wealth and riches of all the particular members are the strength;' salus populi, the people's safety, its 'business;' counsellors, by whom all things needful for it to know are suggested unto it, are the 'memory;' equity, and laws, an artificial reason' and 'will;' concord, health;' sedition, 'sickness;' and civil war, 'death.' Lastly, the pacts and covenants, by which the parts of this body politic were at first made, set together, and united, resemble that 'fiat,' or the 'let us make man,' pronounced by God in the creation. To describe the nature of this artificial man, I will consider-First, the matter thereof, and the artificer; both which is 'man.' Secondly, how and by what covenants it is made; what are the rights and just power or authority of a 'sovereign;' and what it is that 'preserveth' or 'dissolveth' it. Thirdly, what is a Christian commonwealth.' Lastly, what is the kingdom of darkness.'

On the State of War Universal.

So that in the nature of man, we find three principal causes of quarrel. First, competition; secondly, diffidence; thirdly, glory. The first maketh men invade for gain, the second for safety, and the third for reputation. The first use violence, to make themselves masters of other men's persons, wives, children, and cattle; the second, to defend them; the third, for trifles, as a word, a smile, a different opinion, and any other sign of undervalue, either direct in their persons, or by reflection in their kindred, their friends, their nation, their profession, or their name.

Hereby it is manifest that during the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war; and such a war as is of every man, against every man. For 'war' consisteth not in battle only, or the act of fighting; but in a tract of time wherein the will to contend by battle is sufficiently known: and therefore the notion of 'time' is to be considered in the nature of war, as it is in the nature of weather. For as the nature of foul weather lieth not in a shower or two of rain, but in an inclination thereto of many days together; so the nature of war consisteth not in actual fighting, but in the known disposition thereto during all the time there is no assurance to the contrary. All other time is 'peace.'

Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of war, where every man is enemy to every man, the same is consequent to the time wherein men live without other security than what their own strength and their own invention shall furnish them withal.

In such con

dition there is no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain, and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving and removing such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and. which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.

It may seem strange to some man that has not well weighed these things, that Nature should thus dissociate and render men apt to invade and destroy one another; and he may therefore, not trusting to this inference, made from the passions, desire perhaps to have the same confirmed by experience. Let him therefore consider with himself, when taking a journey, he arms himself, and seeks to go well accompanied ; when going to sleep, he locks his doors; when even in his house, he locks his chests; and this when he knows there be laws, and public officers, armed, to revenge all injuries shall be done him; what opinion he has of his fellowsubjects, when he rides armed; of his fellow-citizens, when he locks his doors; and of his children and servants, when he locks his chests. Does he not there as much accuse mankind by his actions as I do by my words? But neither of us accuse man's nature in it. The desires and other passions of man are in themselves no sin. No more are the actions that proceed from those passions, till they know a law that forbids them; which till laws be made they cannot know, nor can any law be made till they have agreed upon the person that shall make it.

It may peradventure be thought there was never such a time nor condition of war as this; and I believe it was never generally so over all the world, but there are many places where they live so now. For the savage people in many places of America, except the govern ment of small families, the concord whereof dependeth on natural lust, have no government at all, and live at this day in that brutish manner, as I said before. Howsoever, it may be perceived what manner of life there would be where there were no common power to fear, by the manner of life which men that have formerly lived under a peaceful government, use to degenerate into in a civil war.

But though there had never been any time wherein particular men were in a condition of war one against another; yet in all times kings and persons of sovereign authority, because of their independency, are in continual jealousies and in the state and posture of gladiators ; having their weapons pointing, and their eyes fixed on one another; that is, their forts, garrisons, and guns upon the frontiers of their kingdoms; and continual spies upon their neighbours; which is a posture of war. But because they uphold thereby the industry of their subjects, there does not follow from it that misery which accompanies the liberty of particular men.

To this war of every man, against every man, this also is consequent-that nothing can be unjust. The notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice, have there no place. Where there is no common power, there is no law: where no law, no injustice. Force and fraud are in war the two cardinal virtues. Justice and injustice are none of the faculties neither of the body nor mind. If they were, they might be in a man

that were alone in the world, as well as his senses and passions. They are qualities that relate to men in society, not in solitude. It is consequent also to the same condition, that there be no propriety, no dominion, no mine' and 'thine' distinct; but only that to be every man's that he can get, and for so long as he can keep it. And thus much for the ill condition which man by mere nature is actually placed in; though with a possibility to come out of it, consisting partly in the passions, partly in his reason.

The passions that incline men to peace are fear of death; desire of such things as are necessary to commodious living; and a hope by their industry to obtain them. And reason suggesteth convenient articles of peace, upon which men may be drawn to agreement. These articles are they which otherwise are called the Laws of Nature: whereof I shall speak more particularly in the two following chapters. (From Leviathan.)

in this time, that men call not only for peace, but also for truth, to offer such doctrines as I think true, and that manifestly tend to peace and loyalty, to the consideration of those that are yet in deliberation, is no more but to offer new wine to be put into new casks, that both may be preserved together. And I suppose that then, when novelty can breed no trouble nor disorder in a state, men are not generally so much inclined to the reverence of antiquity as to prefer ancient errors before new and well-proved truth.

There is nothing I distrust more than my elocution [i.e. power of literary expression, style], which nevertheless I am confident, excepting the mischances of the press, is not obscure. That I have neglected the ornament of quoting ancient poets, orators, and philosophers, contrary to the custom of late time, whether I have done well or ill in it, proceedeth from my judgment, grounded on many reasons. For first, all truth of doctrine dependeth either upon reason or upon Scripture, both which give credit to many, but never receive it from any writer. Secondly, the matters in question are not of fact, but of right, wherein there is no place for witnesses. There is scarce any of those old writers that contradicteth not sometimes both himself and others; which makes their testimonies insufficient. Fourthly, such opinions as are taken only upon credit of antiquity are not intrinsically the judgment of those that cite them, but words that pass, like gaping, from mouth to mouth. Fifthly, it is many times with a fraudulent design that men stick their corrupt doctrine with the cloves of other men's wit. Sixthly, I find not that the ancients they cite took it for an ornament to do the like with those that wrote before them. Seventhly, it is an argument of indigestion, when Greek and Latin sentences unchewed come up again, as they use to do, unchanged. Lastly, though I reverence those men of ancient time that either have written truth perspicuously, or set us in a better way to find it out ourselves: yet to the antiquity itself I think nothing due. For if we will reverence the age, the present is the oldest. If the antiquity of the

writer, I am not sure that generally they to whom such honour is given were more ancient when they wrote than I am that am writing. But if it be well considered, the praise of ancient authors proceeds not from the reverence of the dead, but from the competition and mutual envy of the living.

To conclude, there is nothing in this whole discourse, nor in that I writ before of the same subject in Latin, as far as I can perceive, contrary either to the Word of God or to good manners; or to the disturbance of the public tranquillity. Therefore I think it may be profitably printed, and more profitably taught in the universities, in case they also think so to whom the judgment of the same belongeth. For seeing the universities are the fountains of civil and moral doctrine, from whence the preachers and the gentry, drawing such water as they find, use to sprinkle the same (both from the pulpit and in their conversation) upon the people, there ought certainly to be great care taken to have it pure, both from the venom of heathen politicians and from the incantation of deceiving spirits. And by that means the most men, knowing their duties, will be the less subject to serve the ambition of a few discontented persons in their purposes against the state, and be the less grieved with the contributions necessary for their peace and defence; and the governors themselves have the less cause to maintain at the common charge any greater army than is necessary to make good the public liberty against the invasions and encroachments of foreign enemies.

And thus I have brought to an end my Discourse of Civil and Ecclesiastical Government, occasioned by the disorders of the present time, without partiality, without application, and without other design than to set before men's eyes the mutual relation between protection and obedience; of which the condition of human nature and the laws divine, both natural and positive, require an inviolable observation. And though in the revolution of states there can be no very good constellation for truths of this nature to be born under (as having an angry aspect from the dissolvers of an old government, and seeing but the backs of them that erect a new), yet I cannot think it will be condemned at this time either by the public judge of doctrine or by any that desires the continuance of public peace. And in this hope I return to my interrupted speculation of bodies natural, wherein, if God give me health to finish it, I hope the novelty will as much please as in the doctrine of this artificial body it useth to offend. For such truth as opposeth no man's profit nor pleasure is to all men welcome. (From the conclusion of Leviathan.)

Pity and Indignation.

Pity is imagination or fiction of future calamity to ourselves, proceeding from the sense of another man's calamity. But when it lighteth on such as we think have not deserved the same, the compassion is greater, because then there appeareth more probability that the same may happen to us; for the evil that happeneth to an innocent man may happen to every man. But when we see a man suffer for great crimes, which we cannot easily think will fall upon ourselves, the pity is the less. And therefore men are apt to pity those whom they love; for whom they love they think worthy of good, and therefore not worthy of calamity. Thence it is also that men pity the vices of some persons at the first sight

only, out of love to their aspect. The contrary of pity is hardness of heart, proceeding either from slowness of imagination, or some extreme great opinion of their own exemption from the like calamity, or from hatred of all

or most men.

Indignation is that grief which consisteth in the conception of good success happening to them whom they think unworthy thereof. Seeing therefore men think all those unworthy whom they hate, they think them not only unworthy of the good-fortune they have, but also of their own virtues. And of all the passions of the mind, these two, indignation and pity, are most raised and increased by eloquence; for the aggravation of the calamity, and extenuation of the fault, augmenteth pity; and the extenuation of the worth of the person, together with the magnifying of his success, which are the parts of an orator, are able to turn these two passions into fury. (From Human Nature.)

Emulation and Envy. Emulation is grief arising from seeing one's self exceeded or excelled by his concurrent, together with hope to equal or exceed him in time to come, by his own ability. But envy is the same grief joined with pleasure conceived in the imagination of some ill-fortune that may befall him. (From Human Nature.)

Laughter.

There is a passion that hath no name; but the sign of it is that distortion of the countenance which we call laughter, which is always joy: but what joy, what we think, and wherein we triumph when we laugh, is not hitherto declared by any. That it consisteth in wit, or, as they call it, in the jest, experience confuteth; for men laugh at mischances and indecencies, wherein there lieth no wit nor jest at all. And forasmuch as the same thing is no more ridiculous when it groweth stale or usual, whatsoever it be that moveth laughter, it must be new and unexpected. Men laugh often-especially such as are greedy of applause from everything they do well-at their own actions performed never so little beyond their own expectations; as also at their own jests and in this case it is manifest that the passion of laughter proceedeth from a sudden conception of some ability in himself that laugheth. Also, men laugh at the infirmities of others by comparison wherewith their own abilities are set off and illustrated. Also men laugh at jests the wit whereof always consisteth in the elegant discovering and conveying to our minds some absurdity of another; and in this case also the passion of laughter proceedeth from the sudden imagination of our own odds and eminency; for what is else the recommending of ourselves to our own good opinion, by comparison with another man's infirmity or absurdity? For when a jest is broken upon ourselves, or friends, of whose dishonour we participate, we never laugh thereat. I may therefore conclude that the passion of laughter is nothing else but sudden glory arising from a sudden conception of some eminency in ourselves, by comparison with the infirmity of others, or with our own formerly ; for men laugh at the follies of themselves past, when they come suddenly to remembrance, except they bring with them any present dishonour. It is no wonder, therefore, that men take heinously to be laughed at or derided that is, triumphed over. Laughing without offence must be at absurdities and infirmities abstracted from persons, and when all the company may laugh together; for laughing to one's self putteth all the rest into

jealousy and examination of themselves. Besides, it is vain-glory, and an argument of little worth, to think the infirmity of another sufficient matter for his triumph. (From Human Nature.)

The Necessity of the Will.

The question is not, whether a man be a free agent, that is to say, whether he can write or forbear, speak or be silent, according to his will; but whether the will to write, and the will to forbear, come upon him according to his will, or according to anything else in his own power. I acknowledge this liberty, that I can do if I will; but to say, I can will if I will, I take to be an absurd speech.

[In answer to Bishop Bramhall's assertion, that the doctrine of free will is the belief of all mankind, which we have not learned from our tutors, but is imprinted in our hearts by nature.']—It is true, very few have learned from tutors, that a man is not free to will; nor do they find it much in books. That they find in books, that which the poets chant in the theatres, and the shepherds on the mountains, that which the pastors teach in the churches, and the doctors in the universities, and that which the common people in the markets and all mankind in the whole world do assent unto, is the same that I assent unto-namely, that a man hath freedom to do if he will; but whether he hath freedom to will is a question which it seems neither the bishop nor they ever thought on. A wooden top that is lashed by the boys, and runs about sometimes to one wall, sometimes to another, sometimes spinning, sometimes hitting men on the shins, if it were sensible of its own motion, would think it proceeded from its own will, unless it felt what lashed it. And is a man any wiser when he runs to one place for a benefice, to another for a bargain, and troubles the world with writing errors and requiring answers, because he thinks he does it without other cause than his own will, and seeth not what are the lashings that cause that will?

(From Of Liberty and Necessity.)

On Precision in Language. Seeing that truth consisteth in the right ordering of names in our affirmations, a man that seeketh precise truth had need to remember what every name he useth stands for, and to place it accordingly, or else he will find himself entangled in words as a bird in lime-twigs -the more he struggles, the more belimed. And therefore in geometry, which is the only science that it hath pleased God hitherto to bestow on mankind, men begin at settling the significations of their words; which settling of significations they call definitions, and place them in the beginning of their reckoning.

By this it appears how necessary it is for any man that aspires to true knowledge to examine the definitions of former authors; and either to correct them where they are negligently set down, or to make them himself. For the errors of definitions multiply themselves according as the reckoning proceeds, and lead men into absurdities, which at last they see, but cannot avoid without reckoning anew from the beginning, in which lies the foundation of their errors. From whence it happens that they which trust to books do as they that cast up many little sums into a greater, without considering whether those little sums were rightly cast up or not; and at last, finding the error visible, and not mistrusting their first grounds, know not which way to clear themselves, but spend time in fluttering over their